1 Introduction

The five Nordic countries – Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland – have a long history of close ties. As independent states, the Nordic countries have educational systems with not only many clear similarities but also some differences (Eurydice, 2018; Nordic Council of Ministers, 2008). They rely today on a comprehensive and extended model of schooling that values equity, eschews streaming and permits easy passage between levels. Some of these educational systems have attributes of what has been called the Nordic model of education; that is, schools should be inclusive, comprehensive and extended (Imsen et al., 2017). The core tenets of Nordic education are the development of social justice, equity, equal opportunities, participatory democracy and inclusion, all of which align with the broader values of the Nordic welfare state and the development of the knowledge, skills and attitudes that prepare learners for a future as adult citizens and employers or employees. Contrasts between the Nordic countries and other countries and among education programmes, institutions and practices within the Nordic countries themselves are expected to be key focus areas of future research, with distinctions emerging in contrastive and comparative studies. The similarities may not only be partly due to parallel social developments and similar cultures but also because of the mutually inspired politics and social debates of these independent states; indeed, the Nordic countries often borrow ideas about policy development from one another (Hadzialic et al., 2017). Collaboration among Nordic institutions is also well established, such as the ‘Teacher education in the Nordic region Conference’.

Two premises that shape educational policy in the Nordic countries are often cited:

  • The comprehensive school system in the Nordic countries was extended and further developed from the 1950s through the 1970s. A 13-year experimental period was followed by a full-scale Swedish educational reform in 1962. This reform led to the extension of compulsory education to 9 years for all children aged 7 through 16. The reform later became significant as a model for equivalent extensions and renewals of compulsory education in the other Nordic countries. This reform reinforced the basis for what is currently called the extended, comprehensive, Nordic school-for-all model. Further, some educators sought new ways of teaching that permitted students to participate in classroom lessons and decide, based on their interests, what should be learned. However, these new ideas of teaching were embraced by a small fraction of teachers.

  • Finland’s success in large-scale international surveys in the 2000s has meant that policy shapers in other countries have been inspired by the structure of Finnish teacher education, which entails a 5-year, research-based master’s course and was first implemented in 1979. Finland became a frontrunner towards a modern profession-oriented teacher education (often located at universities).

All the other Nordic countries except Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands) and some exceptional cases have subsequently introduced university-based teacher education for all new primary and secondary school teachers (though there are some nuances). Denmark is an outlier, with teacher education involving a 4-year professional bachelor’s degree at university colleges. Sweden has a complex situation with partly a 4-year programme and partly 4½, 5, and 5½ year programmes.

We have also observed that Nordic countries have been inspired by one another in other policies that have significance for teacher education. In their different ways, both Norway and Denmark have streamlined the criteria for entry to teacher education programmes, with the intention of making teacher education more attractive to applicants. The Nordic countries occasionally carry out evaluations of teacher education programmes; in several cases, these evaluations are reviewed and analysed by expert committees. An expertocracy of teacher education moves between committees in the Nordic region. The expert evaluations create a basis for comparison and an exchange of knowledge about the best ways for the five countries to handle emerging challenges. We also find examples of Nordic benchmarking, which is specifically intended to lead to improvements in how teacher education programmes actually operate. An earlier comparison of teacher education in the Nordic countries was intended to create a basis for an exchange of experiences and mutual inspiration and learning within these countries. This remains an ambition (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2008), but we should add that the trends in the countries’ borrowings of policy design are far more complex than outlined above (Steiner-Khamsi, 2012). Among other things, we must note global trends and the transnational ideas and policy designs promoted by the OECD and other organisations, transnational agreements and similar pacts. For example, in the Bologna Process, 46 European countries reached agreement on a common structure and common mechanisms regarding shaping goals, quality control, weighting systems and similar criteria to ensure a basis for comparison and transferability. With its standardisation requirements, the Bologna Process – and the Bologna Declaration – was regarded as a little-discussed response to the challenges of the global competitive market economy. This standardisation should probably be interpreted as a desire for European policy development among broadly based groups that arose with the new millennium. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the demise of the parallel school system and the evolution of the extended comprehensive school system (the Nordic school model) in the Nordic countries. It also explores how Finnish teacher education arrangements (both curriculum and structure) came to influence the discussions about quality teacher education in the other Nordic countries. Further, global trends and international student assessments have had an impact on how we perceive the quality of schooling. We also examine how the Nordic countries dealt with the issue of quality improvement, in which one seeks to move up in the international measurements that have in many ways set the terms for discussions of education.

The question of the significance of global trends is addressed in this collection of articles. These transnational trends work as driving forces towards greater convergence regarding the structure and the mechanisms of higher education, including teacher education. On the hand, teacher education ought to be adapted to the kind of school for which the aspiring teacher wants to qualify, which may (and likely will) involve different national characteristics. Thus, teacher education reforms are influenced by both global and national forces, creating instances of “vernacular globalisation” (Rizvi & Lingard, 2009), which describes the processes by which international and national educational systems coalesce to create distinctive versions of teacher education within different nation states (Menter, 2019). Thus, teacher education in each Nordic country can be carried out differently even though the basic structure is almost the same. Additionally, the educational systems in European countries generally have great differences, despite their attempts at convergence (Grek, 2009). This collection of articles focuses on teacher education and educational systems within the Nordic countries. Chapter 3 dealt with the precursors of the Nordic educational model and the evolution of teacher education programmes in the Nordic countries. The development was followed until World War II. The main purpose of this chapter is to explain developments in the Nordic countries’ teacher education in recent decades. The development of teacher education must be seen in connection with the development of the comprehensive school model. At various times, teacher education institutions took the leap to higher education. In Norway, a marked separation occurred in 1973 when the teacher training colleges became pedagogical colleges. In Sweden, the same thing happened in 1977. In Denmark, the development has been characterized by an unresolved discussion about the location of teacher education. Proposals to link it to universities have been launched several times. The current Danish solution is to call them university colleges.

Finland was the first Nordic country to determine the location of teacher education in universities as early as 1966. However, it took a few years before this became a reality. The 5-year Finnish teacher education programme, with its school-oriented research thesis, has received substantial attention and inspired policymaking in other Nordic countries (notably Norway and Iceland). Experts have described Finnish teacher education as “outstanding” and “excellent” (Darling-Hammond, 2017).

The other Nordic countries have also witnessed intensive activity in terms of change processes because teacher education has become a ‘policy problem’ in some settings. Sweden has a significant challenge in obtaining fully qualified teachers and implemented a new reform in 2023 with the ambition of creating a shorter supplementary pedagogical training programme to put more teachers in schools and to ensure that the requirements for teacher education are tightened and the focus is clarified (Chap. 4). The length of complementary pedagogical education is shortened, and the pace of study is intended to increase. In addition, the opportunities to work at a school and study teacher education in parallel are intended to be broadened.

In 2008, Iceland implemented a university-based 5-year master’s in education for teachers, but in 2019 the authorities introduced an opportunity for student teachers to complete their teacher education without an independent research-oriented master’s thesis (Chap. 8). In many ways, the lack of qualified teachers and low completion rates were behind changes in the length of teacher education. The pattern can be characterised as two steps forward and one step back.

Norway is – when this is written (2022) – in the process of implementing a 5-year master’s programme for primary and lower secondary school teachers, but only time will tell whether the new arrangements will have an impact on whether students complete the programme (Chap. 6). The completion rates in the programmes are already quite low, and it is not known how the master’s thesis requirement will affect that throughput. A former Norwegian government had a bold ambition that, by 2024, all teachers should have a subject-specific education to support their teaching. But this ambition has been annulled in 2022 by the current Norwegian government.

Teacher education in Greenland (Chap. 10) and the Faroe Islands (Chap. 9) also have their challenges, which are discussed in separate chapters. With the exception of Finland and the Faroe Islands, the Nordic region faces daunting challenges when it comes to teacher education. Those who are interested in teacher education have exciting times ahead of them.

2 The Comprehensive and Extended School System

The intention of the Nordic educational models is that learners from all social groups – irrespective of gender, geographical roots and social and ethnic backgrounds – should attend the same kind of school; that is, they receive compulsory, non-differentiated primary and secondary education (Imsen et al., 2017). Children should have equal opportunities by means of free education, stipends and loans and grants. Overall, the educational system should contribute to evening out opportunities. Some terms for this aim of obligatory primary and secondary education a comprehensive and extended school system, common schooling or schooling for all. The Nordic countries currently offer either 9 or 10 years of mandatory schooling, which in principle means free education for all youngsters. The school system is regulated by age, and there is a single track throughout each student’s school career. Additionally, grading is introduced at a relatively late stage. The similarities in the educational systems of the Nordic countries are summed up in the term “Nordic educational model”. This model’s distinguishing feature is its lack of differentiation in terms of content and structure; learners follow the same curriculum and are not assigned to different tracks (which is known as “organisational differentiation”) until they complete secondary school at 15 or 16 years of age. This is the background for a key attribute of the comprehensive school: the same curriculum and structure for all learners. Inclusiveness is also an ideal; the number of schools designed to take special and distinctive groups of learners has been greatly reduced, and the vast majority of learners are now integrated into what can be called normal schools. This philosophy is what lies behind the expression school for all: mandatory schooling that accommodates significant differences.

The Nordic comprehensive and extended school-for-all model features age-specific classes in which retention (being held back a year) scarcely exists (Imsen et al., 2017). By contrast, school systems in other countries, such as Luxembourg and France, feature learner retention to a far greater extent. Retention as a mechanism also contributes to greater homogeneity in certain respects in the various classes. The Nordic educational model can be likened to a conveyor belt system; learners between ages 6 or 7 and 16 are transferred from a given school year to the next, more or less independently of their performance. The Nordic model is strictly age-graded.

How different this Nordic educational model is can be best understood by comparing it with the educational models in other parts of Europe. For example, in the German school systems, learners can be divided into three different streams as early as year 4 (year 6 in some places); in the streams, students work towards different final exams after years 9, 10 or 12. Another practice is placing German learners in classes according to their intellectual capacities, aiming for homogeneity or similar levels of performance or academic attainment in each class. The teaching arrangements delivered to German school learners is thus differentiated at a relatively early stage.

In a stark contrast, dividing learners into classes by academic level is forbidden in several Nordic countries (Imsen et al., 2017). The consequence is a greater heterogeneity of learner performance and learning expectations in logical-sequential subjects. This kind of mechanism – keeping classes together – can have a variety of effects. The inclusiveness of mixed classes means that academically weak learners may be inspired by or learn from communicating with academically stronger learners. Other scholars have pointed out that teachers thus need to aim their teaching at a medium level, meaning that both the strongest and weakest learners will experience inadequate teaching; which of these two effects is stronger is an empirical question. Legal regulations demand that educational be based on inclusion and adaptive teaching within integrated classes. Overall, this can create internal tensions between promoting achievement (i.e., the most performance-effective teaching) and following the requirements for inclusiveness. The situation in several Nordic countries is such that the comprehensive and extended school-for-all model is displaying cracks; both the Danish and the Swedish secondary school sectors view segregation as being implemented by means of private schools. This tendency is at odds with the concept of ensuring the same schooling for all learners. The numbers of private schools in Norway, Finland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland are more modest.

Nine- or ten-year compulsory schooling was introduced in the Nordic countries in the 1960s and 1970s. The introduction of universal education of this approximate length in other countries was clearly inspired by the Swedish model. For a long time, Sweden maintained a parallel structure in its school system and was thus not a frontrunner of this endeavour. The parallel school system in Sweden was abolished and replaced with comprehensive, extended schools in 1949–1962 (Chap. 4). Regardless of the measures used – the number of learners and teachers, the number of degrees completed, educational institutions established or total costs to society – the twentieth century and especially the period after the World War II show an enormous quantitative expansion in schools. The working class had a talent reserve that it was important to recognize and nurture. Everyone should have the opportunity to take an education that their desires and abilities imply regardless of their social origin. This was largely realised during the 1960s, when many working-class children also entered universities and colleges. This development in the field of education helped bridge the gaps between social classes.

Sweden was neutral in World War II and thus avoided major damage to the country’s infrastructure. The other Nordic countries had – after peace came in 1945 – enough resources to deal with war settlements and destruction. Sweden had opportunities to initiate large-scale experiments with an expanded school system. The well-written report that forms the basis for Sweden’s expansion is an impressive document that is worth reading even today. Although we can find similar bold ideas elsewhere, it was Sweden that began the development work on a significant scale. This clearly inspired the Norwegian authorities in the 1950s to initiate similar efforts to expand schooling; later, the other Nordic countries adopted analogous approaches and programmes. Finland and Denmark introduced 9-year schooling in 1972 (a voluntary tenth year was available), while Iceland established 10-year universal education in 1974. Norway introduced nine-year schooling for all in 1969, 10-year education in 1997, and a voluntary eleventh year in 2019. A key point is that increasing the number of years of a common education for all resulted from mutual influence, with the expansion of the Swedish model serving as an inspiration for the other Nordic countries. This is an excellent example of how the Nordic countries borrow one another’s political ideas.

Teacher education has been a central focus for policymaking. In principle, teacher education should be appropriate to the school’s social mandate and to the distinctive needs and characteristics of the individual country’s educational system. Considering that the educational systems of European countries are so varied, it is no surprise that teacher education programmes in each country also differ. However, since the new millennium, transnational trends have become apparent (see Chaps. 13 and 14), creating certain forms of convergence in the structure and emphasis on research in teacher education programmes of most European countries. The previously noted Bologna Process is one example; another is the spread of ideas about policy formation, which are often connected to the notion of neo-liberal management tendencies in national educational systems (Ball, 2012). Without diminishing the importance of these developments for school systems across the continent, this book is concerned with teacher education and its development in the Nordic region and limited to recent decades.

At its core, teacher education is intended to prepare candidates for future teaching careers. The pool of teachers in any country is renewed over time as generations of teachers leave the profession and new ones arrive. As such, changes in teacher education will affect schools over a certain period of time.

The extension of compulsory schooling to 9 or 10 years in an undifferentiated educational system had consequences for how the varieties of teacher education developed in the Nordic region. Teacher education programmes for the school-for-all system were established and encompassed the entire scope of the comprehensive school’s age range. Until 2010, the general teacher education programme in Norway qualified teachers to teach all subjects in all age ranges. In Denmark as well, teacher education qualified teachers for the entire learner range until 1997 (Rasmussen, 2008). With the passage of time, this system has evolved to make qualifications relate to level and academic specialisation. In Sweden, developments between 1978 and the turn of the millennium headed in the opposite direction; Swedish teacher education was originally divided into three levels. In 1988, this was changed to two levels, before being replaced in 2001 with a single programme that was divided into two specialisations. This reform removed all differences among types of school; student teachers pursuing academic studies in math up to the master’s level could do their teaching practice in a preschool. However, a new system introduced in 2011 differentiates between a lower-school qualification and an academic teacher qualification (for grades 7–9 and the upper secondary). Additionally, there is a preschool teacher course and one for working in after-school initiatives. In Finland, the teacher education still qualifies teachers in all subjects up to year 6. The Icelandic primary school teacher education resembles the Finnish model by focusing on broad skills, but a shortage of teachers there has led to student teachers taking a final year in a supervised and partly paid school practice (‘master of teaching’). This can be seen as two steps forward and one step back. In separate Chaps. (4–11), this book discusses the processes of change in the teacher education schemes of each Nordic country.

Whereas Finnish teacher education has gained international recognition for its high quality, the teacher education programmes in the other Nordic countries and areas have been criticised, sometimes heavily so. Continuing concerns have been expressed about the quality of teachers and their teaching and the commitments to both excellence and equity in education. These concerns have been articulated by politicians, practitioners and researchers in almost every context. Some prognoses indicate inadequate coverage of future teacher needs in Norway, Sweden, Greenland and Iceland. Denmark anticipates inadequate coverage through 2023, although a sufficient supply of teachers is forecasted for later in the 2020s. The current and future supply of teachers can also partly be viewed in the context of many teachers leaving the profession, thus creating the need for extraordinary recruitment measures, such as appointing individuals who lack adequate formal teacher education. The reasons can be complex and can partly reflect demographic effects and partly the varying attractiveness of the teaching profession for those who complete higher education. In general, the teacher shortage is related to the low appeal of teacher education as a course of study. Norway and Denmark have attempted to implement policies that raise the intake requirements for entry into teacher education programmes. Similar policies were considered by the Swedish educational authorities in 2013 but will probably soon be put into practice. In Iceland and other Scandinavian countries, there is also a significant dropout rate during teacher education. The teacher education institutions’ programmes have been the subject of critical attention for their lack of relevance to the exercise of teachers’ professional duties. In short, teacher education programmes in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland are in crisis.

3 The Economic Evolution of Modern Nordic Societies

Modern Nordic societies, which in the second half of the nineteenth century had begun to grow out of primary businesses such as agriculture, forestry and fishing, and which with the industrial rise in the post-war years industry became the dominant type. The period from 1950 to 1970 was the golden age of industrial societies in several regions as well as Nordic cooperation. It was during this period that industry replaced agriculture as the business that employed the most. Consistently high economic growth and the redistribution of this through centralized wage settlements, progressive taxation and the welfare state’s benefits also created great optimism for the future: almost everyone should participate in the working life.

Since about 1970, globalization has put the country-territorial framework of the Nordic nations under pressure. Post-industrial service and knowledge professions have replaced industry as the most important sector in terms of employment and value creation. A major shift in the business landscape took place. Migration and significant share of young people investing in higher education has led to a brain business surge. Most of the Nordic countries are in the top echelon of National Ranking of Brain Business Jobs (Sanandaji, 2021). Vocational differentiation and the emergence of a post-industrial middle class have made the old conflicts between social groups less clear and important. Around 1970, a new type of society has gradually grown out of the modernity of industrial society. Steady growth of knowledge-intensive jobs arose. The Nordic countries are mainly in good positions when it comes to the proportion of knowledge-intensive jobs. In the first phase, from 1945 to around 1970, the countries were to be built up and integrated after years of social tensions and German occupation (except Sweden, Iceland and Greenland; Finland has a complex World War II history). The goal was an efficient, well-organized and socially just modern industrial society. The means was a welfare state built on comprehensive and universal benefits. During this period, the individual had to bow to the community: equality and solidarity became the central values. It was about standing up for each other, lifting together, and then distributing the benefits reasonably evenly. The industrial society’s modernity founded on equality and solidarity is left. A step into a new type of modernity where freedom has strengthened its position is taken (Aakvaag et al., 2012).

Free education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels lays the foundation for an emphasis on the knowledge-based economy in the North, parts of which enjoy world-leading levels of investment in research that supports enterprises, services and the development of a modern, high-tech society. Employment levels are generally high in the Nordic region, with women and older people in particular making a positive contribution. The gender wage gap is also generally low compared to other countries.

A joint Nordic labour market established in 1954 and job opportunities have been the key reasons why northerners have moved or commuted across national borders. However, wage differences have also contributed to inter-Nordic migration. The first major relocation movement was from Finland to Sweden. Today, Norway is the largest recipient country of Nordic migrants. A European labour market has emerged, leading to a significant influx of Eastern European labour to the North following EU enlargement in 2004. Seasonal work in agriculture, fisheries and services has become completely dependent on foreign labour. This has been made possible through the establishment of a common European labour market. Immigration through asylum schemes and family reunification also contribute to the labour influx. How will the Nordic model be influenced by the increasingly extensive international migration from cultures that are very different from Nordic cultures?

Why is there a high proportion of foreign labour in the Nordic countries? The answer to this question depends on which Nordic country is involved. As relatively rich countries, they all attract labour from other countries. Immigration of highly skilled labour has always been important for economic development in the North, from the Hanseatic era through the early mining enterprises to industrialisation and the purchase and maintenance of machinery.

Parts of the Nordic region have very high wages, and the small gender wage gaps in Nordic countries help attract foreign labour. At the same time, there is a declining participation rate among some Nordic citizens, and there is a growing group of, for instance, young people who are in neither work nor education. Not everyone is able to handle the pressure of productivity, which means that some gravitate towards schemes in which you live and finance your life over a very low flame.

Overall, citizens in the Nordic countries have done better in material terms. The Nordic route to prosperity preceded the evolution of many welfare arrangements. A hundred years ago, Sweden was the political and economic big brother in the North. However, that situation has changed over time. Per capita gross domestic product figures from 2021 show Norway now on top in the Nordic region, followed by Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, in that order.

For Norway, petroleum extraction plays a significant role, as does the fact that part of the gains from petroleum extraction are used to bolster and diversify the Norwegian economy. Both phenomena lead to the increased use of foreign labour. But in addition to exports of crude oil and natural gas, exports of fish, aluminum and electricity also play a significant role in the Norwegian economy. The petroleum sector has helped raise wages to obtain sufficient suitable labour. This mechanism spreads to the labour market in both the sheltered sector and other competitive sectors and has helped push up wages across the board. If companies can pay foreign workers a little bit less, a labour influx from abroad will soon occur. Over time, this means that the non-petroleum sector exposed to competition will shrink, while the sheltered sector remains the same or increases in size. Many manual occupations are gradually being automated as the cost of human labour increases. Importing cheap labour from abroad has become a way for competitive businesses to adapt to economic conditions. Thus, income from nature (known as “natural capital”) is traded through the use of foreign labour, and the wealth from natural capital is to some extent provided by foreigners.

Denmark is also a petroleum nation but it has extensive industrial and agricultural production, along with a service sector. Until World War II, agriculture had the greatest impact on the Danish economy. Later, agriculture declined, and Denmark’s economy is now largely based on services, industry and financial activities. Denmark has a mixed economy with a large degree of free trade, and its standard of living is above the European average. Denmark also has the world’s highest tax levels.

Unlike Norway and Denmark, Sweden does not have petroleum resources. The northern part of Sweden is covered by forests, while the central part is the country’s industrial core. The southern part has extensive agricultural production. Supported by peace and neutrality throughout the twentieth century, Sweden has achieved a very high standard of living but has nevertheless enjoyed somewhat weaker development than, for example, Norway. The Swedish route to prosperity was built by a mix of capitalism and an extensive public sector that supplies welfare benefits funded by high taxes. Industry in Sweden increased until the mid-1970s, when the service sector took the lead.

The Faroe Islands’ economy is dominated by fishing, including fish farming, which accounts for around 95% of its export revenues and half of its GDP. Greenland imports almost all consumer goods, while its exports consist almost exclusively of fish and cold-water shrimp. Modern Greenlandic society is heavily influenced by a large public sector, and private business exists only on a small scale. Hunting, Greenland’s traditional means of livelihood, has lost importance.

Fishing and fish products also dominate Iceland’s economy, but Iceland has developed its service sector (tourism and finance) and industrial sector (information and communications technology, biotechnology) to a greater extent. The fisheries in the Åland Islands have declined over time, but they still have a thriving economy, which is closely linked to tourism and shipping.

Economic growth is positively related to school levels, school attainment and other quality-related aspects of education in the Nordic countries (Gylfason, 2001; Herbertsson, 2003). Human capital has been cited as a determinant of economic growth (Vandenbussche et al., 2006). Other factors of importance for national competitiveness are institutional quality, infrastructure, ICT maturity, macroeconomic stability, health, human capital, product markets, labour markets, the financial system, market size, business dynamics and innovation capacity. Although per capita economic growth was high decades ago, from 2017 to 2019, per capita economic growth among Nordic countries was in the low echelon of OECD countries (Eklund & Thulin, 2020). What does this mean for the future? Officially, Nordic co-operation is striving for sustainable development, gender equality, and a children’s rights and youth perspective in its visions of the future. What will the underlying economic realities mean for how much of that can be realised? What role does the education sector play in this issue? This type of question is fundamentally about political controversies and priorities.

4 The Evolution of the Nordic Welfare State

The Nordic model involves a public sector that provides citizens with welfare services and a social safety net. However, the term ‘Nordic model’ is as elusive to define succinctly as it is common to read and hear. Andersen et al. (2007) see the principal features of the Nordic model as the following:

  • a comprehensive welfare state with an emphasis on payments to households and publicly provided social services financed by notably high taxes

  • a great deal of public and/or private investment in almost free education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, along with subsidised childcare

  • a set of labour market institutions that includes strong labour unions and employer associations, significant elements of wage coordination, relatively generous unemployment benefits and a prominent role for active labour market policies.

Others associate the Nordic model with the introduction of market reforms and flexibility in the public sector (Greve et al., 2016). The term ‘the Nordic model’ has also been used to refer to the Nordic states themselves, with their comprehensive welfare arrangements and high taxes to fund them (Greve, 2007). In addition, the term is used in a limited sense to refer to consensual decision-making in politics (Jónsson, 2014) and centralised arrangements for resolving conflict in the labour market (Brandal et al., 2013). The Nordic countries have long had a tradition that gives employees significant influence in centralised bargaining regarding collective agreements on salaries and working hours (Byrkjeflot, 2001). The term ‘Nordic bargaining model’ (which is protected as a brand by The United States Court of Patent Appeals) refers to inter-party collaboration between employer and employee organisations (and the state in some instances), which is based on influence, joint decision-making and mutual respect (Brandal et al., 2013). Inter-party collaboration is intended to reduce the negative effects of inherent conflicts of interest, which in some instances can disrupt processes (Barth & Moene, 2016). Negotiations often take place in connection with collective and centralised tariff agreements and through agreements on working conditions. In addition to a centralised agreement on salaries and working conditions, local negotiated settlements allow for salary increments where necessary to satisfy the recruitment needs of individual companies (Barth & Moene, 2016). This basic model for finding solutions to conflicts has garnered both interest and admiration, given that the influence of Scandinavian trade unions has contributed to a relatively low level of workplace conflict and to a comparatively high standard of living among industrial workers.

The account of the economic development in the Nordic countries in this chapter is not uncontroversial. Disagreements about what explains and maintains economic progress persist. Some emphasise that education is not highly valued in the Nordic countries (Eklund, 2018); the social order tends to incentivise over-education or education in the wrong programmes. Further, the way negotiations on wages and working hours often take place through collective agreements could lead to quite unfavourable results (Acemoglu et al., 2012). Sanandaji (2016) claims in Debunking Utopia that the Nordic societies succeed despite the welfare state and not because of it. He refers to statistics that show that Danish Americans have a 55% higher standard of living than Danes in Denmark, while Swedish Americans have a 53% higher standard of living than Swedes in Sweden (2013 figures). In other words, it can be argued that the way Nordic societies are organised can actually be limiting.

Other economists have a completely different concept of how the framework for negotiations between the social partners can best be designed. A generous welfare state contributes to wage compression, which in turn increases the need for a generous welfare state. The two mechanisms support each other and give rise to an equality multiplier (Barth & Moene, 2016). Several Nordic countries have reached situations in which it was difficult to expand the welfare arrangements any further. As a remedy, decentralisation of decision power and political devolution from the state to the municipalities took place in the 1990s. One example is schooling, as the municipalities became employers of the school staff. Sweden is the most extreme example of the decentralisation of decision power and the introduction of quasi-market arrangements in schooling (with something that looks like a voucher system). Large private school enterprises arose. Denmark has also a tradition of private schools, but still has few private groups that run schools. In the other Nordic countries, the volume of private schools is more modest.

5 The Nordic Gold: Trust

Education is a vital social good. It lays the foundation for welfare promotion and the economic and technological restructuring of society. Its quality has critical implications for society’s long-term well-being (Putnam, 2015). Some scholars argue that a common Nordic school model exists because Nordic countries rely on a comprehensive and extended model that values equity, no streaming, and easy passage between levels (Imsen et al., 2017). The tenets of Nordic education are the development of social justice, equity, equal opportunities, participative democracy and inclusion, which align with the values of the Nordic welfare state and the development of the knowledge, skills and attitudes that prepare learners for a future as adult citizens and employers or employees. While clear similarities exist between Nordic educational systems, there are also significant differences. Contrasts between the Nordic countries and other countries and among education programmes, institutions and practices within the Nordic countries themselves are expected to be key focus areas of future research, with the distinctive characteristics emerging in contrastive and comparative studies.

Although the Nordic region has become less homogeneous, it remains meaningful to refer to a common Nordic societal model. The Nordic countries have strong collective societies that are characterised by high levels of social trust.Footnote 1 They demonstrate the highest confidence and interpersonal trust worldwide (Holmberg & Rothstein, 2016), which builds social capital and distinguishes them from the rest of the world. People with a high degree of social trust are more likely to perceive that they have greater control over their lives and do better in life (Fukuyama, 1995). Trust and confidence also promote engagement with society. These highly valued levels of social trust are as good as gold in Nordic society (Andreasson, 2017). However, this phenomenon has developed over time and is the result of several collaborative but complex social processes. The question is whether the high degree of trust facilitates the conditions for the economic development that has taken place in the North? And how does the school facilitate that children and adolescents have a relationship of trust with society? Nordic schools’ functioning builds and sustains social trust and confidence. Close interactions exist between learners’ upbringing at home and their education in schools and society (Putnam, 2015).

The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. The 2019 report uses data obtained from the Gallup World Poll. The rankings are based on answers to the main life evaluation question asked in the poll, and the variables used reflect what has been broadly found in the research literature to be important in explaining national-level differences in life evaluations. The Nordic countries show extremely high values for the following key variables that have been found to support well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity. The ranking of happiness by country shows that four of the five Nordic countries top the global happiness ranking in the 2016–2018, with Sweden still a very respectable seventh place:

The annual data for Finland have continued their modest but steady upward trend since 2014, so that dropping 2015 and adding 2018 boosts the average score, thereby putting Finland significantly ahead of other countries in the top ten. Denmark and Norway have also increased their average scores, but Denmark by more than Norway, so Denmark is now in second place and Norway third. There are no 2018 survey results available for Iceland, and their score and ranking remain the same, in fourth place (Helliwell et al., 2021, pp. 26, 30).

Since 2003, the Global Corruption Barometer has surveyed the experiences of everyday people confronting corruption around the world. The corruption perceptions index shows that the Nordic countries are among the countries with least corruption (Transparency International, 2021). All Nordic countries are in the top echelon of the The Democracy Index (The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited, 2021). Thus index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories, measuring pluralism, civil liberties and political culture. The Intergenerational Solidarity Index (made up of ten indicators of environmental, social and economic solidarity) shows how much different nations provide for the wellbeing of future generations (Krznaric, 2020). The Nordic countries are in the top echelon (except Norway). The World Economic Forum introduced the Global Gender Gap Index as a framework for capturing the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracking their evolution. The index benchmarks national gender gaps in economic, political, education and health criteria and provides country rankings that allow effective comparisons across regions and income groups. No country in the world has achieved gender equality. The highest ranked countries – Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden – have closed over 80% of their gender gaps, while Denmark is number 14 on the list (World Economic Forum, 2019).

Education has played a particularly important role in recent decades. Schools’ functioning – in alignment with that of voluntary organisations and society’s formal institutions – sustains democratic beliefs and establishes the foundation of democratic citizenship (Putnam, 2015). Regarding the state’s role (Holmberg & Rothstein, 2016), research has focused on perceived justice in societal institutions, for instance, along with schools’ functioning. Moreover, a general welfare state arrangement counteracts the creation of subclasses (Valkonen & Vihriäla, 2014). The state’s efforts to raise the population’s educational level have had a positive impact in this context. Therefore, the cement in Nordic societies consists of social trust among citizens (Rothstein, 2003), relational trust in schools and trust in society’s institutions, including its political and legal systems. A critical spotlight has also been shone on teacher education institutions’ programmes for their limited relevance to the exercise of teachers’ vocational tasks (e.g., Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, 2018; Lid, 2013; NOKUT, 2006). The criticism is justified, though to varying degrees. The content of teacher education has also been questioned. It is a matter of debate whether any of these criticisms affects the position of progressive pedagogy in the Scandinavian countries. This issue applies in particular to public governance documents for the education sector and to ideas communicated in teacher education environments. Questions have been raised about the limited relevance, in terms of real-world experience, of the theoretical basis for the practical training elements of teacher education (Henrekson et al., 2017; Lid, 2013). The question is whether this point is related to what is referred to in the next section as the Scandinavian version of progressive pedagogy and attempting to answer is a complex task, for many reasons. Here are two explanations that can help fill in the picture. Dahlløf (1984) describes a feature of the expansion of the comprehensive school, specifically the postponement of selection by the school system. This also means that ongoing control and examination schemes become less overbearing, with the consequence that knowledge profiles and knowledge requirements are less marked. Furthermore, pressure from youth cultures and less pressure from national and international cultures linked to the higher echelons of the society represent cultural forces outside the school.

6 The Scandinavian Version of Progressive Pedagogy

A fraction of Scandinavian educators embraced ideas of learner-centered teaching in the mid of the twentieth century. These educators tried to incorporate learners’ aptitudes and interests into the curriculum. These ideas challenged the dominant practices of teacher-centered teaching. These new ideas manifested themselves unevenly in the Nordic region. This is an example. After World War II and in connection with the Swedish reforms in schools and teacher education, a kind of state-imposed progressivism emerged (Carlgren, 2018); progressive pedagogical methods were prescribed in curricula and other control signals. This idea flow can be linked to the general concept of progressive pedagogy, but there has been discussion about a peculiarly Scandinavian progressive pedagogy that has changed with the spread of the mass education system, as we in Europe received it after the education explosion from around 1960 onwards. In other words, it speaks of a different progressivism than the more child-centred reform education that was promoted between the world wars. Reform pedagogy meant a friendlier form of interaction between teacher and students, as well as less oppressive discipline in school. Another important ambition was to make the school’s curriculum more meaningful and applicable.

In the Scandinavian teacher education environment, this progressive view spread with great rapidity, especially in the 1970s: “In teacher education, pedagogical ideals were conveyed which were often quite far from the educational reality in schools” (Carlgren, 2018). The educational ideals were particularly related to project work, problem-based learning and investigative working methods in the classroom (often known as inquiry learning and discovery learning). A similar fascination with progressive pedagogy could also be found in Norwegian teacher (Haug, 2009; Rovde, 2004) and Danish education environments (de Coninck-Smith et al., 2015). The Scandinavian version of progressive pedagogy became a decisive, idealised model that remained opposed to traditional pedagogy, which was influential in ordinary schools (Telhaug et al., 2006, p. 254).

As noted above, progressive ideals were highlighted in the policy designs for the schools and teacher education in the 1970s. An example of the latter concerns the Swedish teacher education system (Larson, 2011); the 1974 reform emphasised that the teacher’s role should be shifted from knowledge dissemination to stimulating the students’ personality development (see SOU report, 1978, p. 86). Furthermore, according to a widespread view, knowledge is not something that the teacher conveys to students but something the students themselves construct (Kornhall, 2013). Instead, the teacher should facilitate and guide the students’ active, self-regulated learning processes. The facilitation of learning would become more individualised, among other things, through the requirement for adjusted education. Students should work independently and be considered creative and knowledgeable individuals who can “research” and discover phenomena (Bruner, 1961), either by themselves or with other students. In this way, students should progress towards the knowledge goals that the teacher has deduced from the national curricula through prepared work plans for learners. The teacher’s role becomes more like a facilitator, a guide or a tutor: someone who enables students to have adequate tools and learning resources to use in a learning community. Thematisation across established school subjects was emphasised as important. The opposite of this ideal type of learning community was a negatively drawn image of the traditional classroom in which knowledge dissemination, teachers doing teaching, drills and exercises were central.

Reform or progressive pedagogy has a complex prehistory in Scandinavian countries, as it does in other parts of the world (Dewey, 1928; Labaree, 2005; Lundgren, 2002; Reese, 2001). At the end of the 1990s, a continuation of the Scandinavian progressive pedagogy from the 1970s was used as the basis for curriculum development, and the view that had been embedded in this direction was once again to make its mark on discussions, such as those about schools and society. To varying degrees, project work and theme-based group work, individualisation of learning activities and cross-disciplinary ambitions for the schools’ activities were presented as exemplary of school practice, the meaning of which was therefore expected to be understood by the teachers. There are different nuances in the basic views that were promoted in the 1990s, but one variant can be explained as follows: knowledge is created in a social context, and it is important that learners discover knowledge for themselves, often together with others. Thus, the teacher must exercise caution in conveying knowledge but should facilitate learners’ access to sufficient learning resources and efforts to take responsibility for their own learning processes. Together with others, the students use learning resources and form a practice community where issues are discussed and resolved; it is the students who undertake examinations and thus discover what is important to learn. This teaching and learning approach has implications for normative ideas about the exercise of the teacher’s role and the attractiveness of the teaching profession; the teacher must facilitate the students’ self-regulated learning. The legitimacy of making demands of and having expectations directed at students was weakened, and the students’ own work processes would be essential.

The national governance of schools in the Scandinavian countries in the 1990s placed great emphasis on those student work processes. What follows is an example from a Norwegian school. Over the 1997–1999 period, a regulation stipulated that project work would be compulsory in schools: 60% of classroom time at the primary level, 30% in intermediate classes of 11- and 12-year-olds and 20% at the lower secondary level had to be used for projects. This ideologically dedicated provision was not supported by research (e.g., Kirschner et al., 2006; Klahr & Nigam, 2004; Mayer, 2004). A nationwide regulation issued in 1999 stated that some of the curricular content could be replaced or selected and that the percentages for project work should only be used as guidance (Telhaug & Mediås, 2003). Nevertheless, the idea of project work remained popular in the highest echelon of the then Ministry of Education and Research at the turn of the millennium. Ole Briseid, then head of the ministry’s Curriculum Department, was interviewed for an Aftenposten article published on July 5, 2001 (about 6 months before the first PISA report was published) said the following:

The Ministry has wanted to reform the teaching methods in schools (in Norway) for a long time. Now this is finally happening. The Ministry has wanted this for a long time. He (Briseid) wants more project work, less traditional teaching using the blackboard as a visual aid and more problem-based teaching. To a larger extent, learners will work independently and in groups with topics they develop themselves. The teachers will be more like supervisors than lecturers, and computer technology forces the development of new teaching methods (Kluge, 2001, p. 3).

A leading politician also said, “the teacher is mainly a tutor instead of being a teacher/lecturer” (then Norwegian Minister of Education Trond Giske, as cited in Skagen, 2014). What impact such signals had on the actual educational activities in schools remains an unresolved empirical question, but the normative premises in the Norwegian politics of the 1990s are indisputable.

A similar development took place in Swedish education (SOU, 1999, p. 63). The Swedish Curriculum Committee envisioned that the learner’s role in school would be to investigate phenomena and discover what to learn. The teacher’s role would be to stimulate, support and guide students (Linderoth, 2016, p. 50). The emphasis on these forms of student activity had implications for the exercise of the teacher’s role; the teacher should facilitate the student’s active exploration by making tools and resources available and by mentoring and guiding the student’s journey of discovery. Ylva Johansson, the Social Democrat School Minister of the day, said the following: “The teachers will never get back their old status, the one that was associated with the old school. It was an authority that rested on a role given by the authorities – the school had the knowledge monopoly. Today, one must in another way deserve its legitimacy” (Svenska Dagbladet, August 17th in 1997). A changed teacher role was emphasised by the education authorities. The extent to which the control signals affected practice in Swedish schools.

This way of assessing teachers’ work also had implications for the view of knowledge. The Swedish National Agency for Education wrote the following (in connection with the introduction of new curricula in Sweden, Curriculum guidelines from 1994):

Knowledge [is not intended] … to [be] convey[ed] or transfer[red] from one individual to another, from the one who teaches to the one who [is taught]. […] The teacher’s role must change, […] and instead of creating knowledge, the teacher should “guide” the student in his / her learning. The teacher’s teaching role was thus toned down to support and supervise, while the responsibility for the learners’ knowledge development was to a much greater extent placed on the student himself.

The topic discussed above is referred to in this chapter as the Scandinavian version of progressive pedagogy. This view had a strong position in teacher education environments and among top bureaucrats in the Scandinavian countries. However, over time, the hegemony of progressive pedagogy was weakened in both management intentions and pedagogical practice (Imsen & Ramberg, 2014; Østerud, 2016).

The results of large-scale international studies provided legitimacy for changing the policies underlying progressive education. Target management with results control has entered the education sector in a stronger way than previously known. It is crucial that future research study this transformation in detail. After the turn of the millennium, both words and meanings have been changed in public educational documents. The knowledge discourse embedded in large-scale international surveys has been more accepted as important in the political debate across almost the entire political landscape (Elstad, 2012). The previous recommendation of a facilitating role for teachers has been replaced by formulations on more active executive roles (expressions such as “put pressure on learners” have been used in Norwegian educational policy documents).

In the Swedish debate, the public discussion has become unnecessarily polarised through the use of expressions like “woollen pedagogy” and “pulpit teaching” as two dramatic traits. The resistance to the importance of large-scale international studies and the implications for schools and teacher roles has – with some exceptions – disappeared from the debate in newspapers and other media and from the textbooks used in teacher education. More research is needed to determine whether the content of campus teaching in teacher education programmes provides a good starting point for entering the field as a newly qualified teacher. We are on safer ground arguing that the premises embedded in large-scale international studies have had enormous importance for and impact on the public debate surrounding what constitutes an ideal education. Therefore, it is reasonable to more closely examine the importance of large-scale international studies.

7 Reforms in Nordic Countries’ Teacher Education Systems

In most national systems, teacher education is a complex programme partly because pedagogic training occurs in two distinct arenas: (1) on-campus teaching at an institution of some kind and (2) training in the practice school. A vital challenge that has plagued some teacher education programmes over time is a lack of integration between campus-based education and school-based practice. There might be some challenges in teacher education in terms of coherence and the integration of theory and practice. However, this criticism has been directed with varying intensities and for different reasons. Further, it is a central premise that there should be coherence and connectedness between the theoretical and practical elements in teacher education in all Nordic countries. However, the institutional arrangements and content may vary among teacher education institutions in Nordic countries. One of the challenges for school-based supervisors is to relate the content of their supervision to the basis of knowledge that is created in the campus-based portion of teacher education. As for the teacher education institution, information material is prepared regarding the campus-based content of teacher education and guidelines regarding the conduct of supervision at the school. In addition, meetings are arranged between teacher educators and practice supervisors to establish points of contact and mutual information. However, these forms of organised contact are often not fully integrated or comprehensive. On the other hand, attempts have been made to strengthen the contact between the teacher-education institutions and schools by establishing institutional arrangements for partnerships: some schools have been specially designated as training schools that operate in close partnership with teacher education institutions. There have also been attempts to establish a closer collaboration, which is binding for schools if they are to describe themselves as “university schools” (a term to which a certain prestige is attached). There are few resources available for carrying out systematic contact between educationalists and practice supervisors.

As noted above, the Nordic countries’ teacher education systems have undergone several reforms and minor adjustments in recent decades, in terms of both structure and content. This endeavour is a never-ending story: reforms have contributed to renewals and changes, but some problems have not been solved, as we have seen above. At the same time, teacher education is characterised by contradictory expectations in the public debate. The following are some of the many examples available. First, on one hand, the teacher education reforms in recent years have led to a sharpened academic emphasis, which implies academic specialisation in a few subjects. Thus, there is an emphasis on professional depth instead of breadth. On the other hand, many schools in sparsely populated areas in the Nordic countries need teachers with broad competence to meet each school’s need to provide education throughout the comprehensive school’s portfolio. In some cases, it will be impractical and may not be possible to produce a roster of teachers with specialisations in all the subjects where this is required. Thus, a trade-off relationship arises between considerations of academic specialisation and the need to maintain schools in sparsely populated areas. Competence requirements could lead to a situation in which small schools must be closed down, with their former students transported daily over longer distances or sent to boarding schools. This phenomenon has already been witnessed in Iceland.

The second example is the tension between increasing admission requirements for teacher education and the need to produce a sufficient number of educated teachers. On one hand, tightening up admission requirements will discourage less suitable applicants. On the other hand, more stringent criteria for entry could mean that more highly qualified applicants would find teacher education more attractive than previously. Which of these mechanisms is stronger is a question that can only be answered empirically. In cases where the numbers of both applicants and fully trained graduates have decreased, there will be a trade-off between two contradictory considerations.

The third example is a long-term trend showing the Nordic educational authorities’ emphasis on teacher education programmes based on research and that teacher educators should be active researchers. However, politicians stress that the content of teacher education should also ensure practical relevance. This is a difficult trade-off (see, e.g., the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, 2018, p. 48). Some educators have discussed placing greater emphasis on the importance of field experiences in teacher education (Zeichner, 2017). For example, starting in 2021, the Swedish government will again “reform teacher education: the requirements for education must be tightened. Admission requirements must be raised. More teacher-led hours should be introduced, and the connection between theory and practice should be strengthened. The focus on teaching methodology should increase” (January Agreement, 2019). Former Swedish Minister of Education Jan Björklund argued for the introduction of “a mandatory block of teaching methodology. Teaching methodology should be the subject connection, and educators of this teaching methodology should be experienced teachers from the school system. Teaching methodology has not been considered to be academic and has therefore been squeezed out of teacher education” (Björklund & Fahlén, 2018). This statement reveals an endemic tension between the research and practical orientations of emphasising teaching methods in the teacher education curriculum. In other words, teacher education institutions must navigate a field of tension between considerations that are well justified but can be onerous. This problem is acknowledged in teacher education in the Nordic region environments, where there have been attempts to find solutions through, among other means, partnership agreements between teacher education institutions and practice schools.

8 Importance of School Reforms for Learners’ Performance Levels

Gustafsson and Blömeke (2018) have analysed the results published in large-scale international surveys from 1964 to 2012 that measured reading literacy and numeracy to identify trend lines in Nordic countries’ school performance (Iceland was not included in the surveys). First, their study shows that the increase in the number of years of compulsory schooling in the 1960s and the 1970s was followed by improvements in literacy and numeracy performance among the general population. An example can help illustrate this finding. Finland’s oldest age group in the survey (the cohort that attended the 7-year school before the school expansion in the 1970s) had weak reading skills and poor numerical understanding. However, among those who finished Finnish comprehensive and extended school in the mid-1970s and later, performance in literacy and numeracy was significantly improved. This achievement applies particularly to the group that completed Finnish school in the mid-1990s, which appears to represent a clear performance peak in the Nordic comparison. It is difficult to prove causal relationships in educational studies that are based on time-series data, but Gustafsson and Blömeke (2018) set the trajectory for reading literacy in connection with both the expansion of Finnish school to 9 years and the improved teacher education that was implemented in 1970 and the years that followed.

Citing Kivirauma and Ruoho (2007), Gustafsson and Blömeke (2018) also note a distinctly focused support for almost 20% of the students with special needs in the first to third grades. The extent of the use of special education then dropped to about 8% of learners in the ninth grade. Much of this teaching was devoted to writing. The combination of extended schooling and focused support education may help explain the improvement in Finnish performance; both educational reforms and teacher education reforms in Finland worked in favourable ways to increase performance in literacy and numeracy, with a peak in the mid-1990s. The Finnish results were clearly higher than the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish results at the same time (Gustafsson & Blömeke, 2018). However, all the Nordic countries (again, Iceland was not surveyed) experienced a negative trend from the mid-1990s through 2012. Since then, the trajectories have been more mixed. Sweden had a relatively high level of performance in reading literacy among those who completed compulsory elementary school in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the Swedish results declined significantly over time through 2012; they then showed improvement in mathematics and reading skills in 2015. Gustafsson and Blömeke (2018) have hypothesised that decentralisation, deregulation and marketisation of schools, which began to be implemented in the early 1990s, are important factors that help explain the decline in Swedish performance through 2012. These factors are believed to have had a negative impact on teacher professionalism and contributed to segregation in schools. What importance the emphasis on a facilitating teacher role (in combination with emphasising learners’ own responsibility for learning) has had on results in Scandinavian countries remains an unresolved empirical question.

9 Significance of Large-Scale International Surveys for Society’s Assessment of Educational Quality

Sweden and Norway carried out a full comprehensification of upper secondary schools in the 1970s, with the Norwegian arrangement clearly inspired by the Swedish effort. Vocational and academically oriented schools were spliced together into one type of school system. Passage between these programmes was possible, and access to universities via vocational education was also opened up. Special classes and special schools for people with learning difficulties were often shut down. However, special schools did not disappear completely; only their number was reduced. A new system of integrated special education arose. Learners with special needs were to receive adapted education within the framework of regular schooling. Special teachers would come to the classrooms or special rooms to help if needed. Nordic politicians of the 1970s were often proud of the development of the comprehensive school model and the full integration that was implemented. For instance, then Norwegian Church and Education Minister Bjartmar Gjerde stated in 1975 that Norway had “the world’s best education”. The claim remained unchallenged despite evidence from large-scale international surveys, which cast doubt on its validity. While the Nordic comprehensive and extended school model had previously been viewed with some admiration and interest, large-scale international surveys have changed the perception of the educational quality in the Nordic countries, with the exception of Finland. In particular, the large-scale surveys PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS have gained the attention of politicians, educational administrators, educationalists, the press and socially interested people. By means of the PISA survey, the OECD has adopted an institutional development role as arbiter for global governance in education, diagnostician, senior judge and advisor in the promotion of global education. It used to be self-evident that each country’s own educational system should be controlled by that state and subject to a more or less exclusively domestic discussion. Since the turn of the millennium, however, the OECD’s measurements have been the determinants of directions in educational policy, while the OECD’s country-specific advice has been given pride of place, and the heart of that advice is a transnational assessment perspective. The OECD is conscious of its role in influencing the educational policies of individual countries. The OECD’s PISA has thus contributed to shaping the climate for discussions on what constitutes ideal schooling, and the media have helped create a powerful PISA discourse.

The results of large-scale international surveys have played an important role as evidence for shaping policy. Increased requirements for professionalism and competence development and more resource-oriented forms of management became hallmarks of education governance in the 1990s. The emphasis on globalisation brings with it a more competitive spirit. From the mid-1990s, education was the subject of tight fiscal policy in several countries, a situation that was only exacerbated by the international economic crisis in 2008. The introduction of management by objectives and governing by results has been blamed for many problems and challenges that have arisen. Several attempts have been made to meet challenges in the education sectors, including the individual’s opportunities for development and the power of social cohesion. It has been claimed that keywords such as accountability, competitiveness, economies of scale, resource management and performativity (both targets and standards) lead to the deprofessionalisation of teachers (Lindblad et al., 2018). In these and other scholars’ views, education rapidly loses its social meaning and becomes commoditised.

The Nordic countries show both similarities and differences in these large-scale international surveys. Some people claim that the results of these surveys demonstrate strengths and weaknesses in the educational systems of the individual countries and can provide a basis for changes in educational policy. When the first PISA survey was published on 4th December 2001, the Norwegian results struck like “a bolt of lightning”, as the former head of the Norwegian Directorate of Education and Training put it: “The Norwegian authorities […] had assumed that Norway would be the best in the OECD” (Gjerdåker, 2008). Finland was announced as the “winner” of the first PISA survey in 2001, while the other Nordic countries were in the middle of the pack and have generally – with a few significant exceptions – stayed at that level since then. It is fair to speak of PISA shock. PISA and subsequent large-scale surveys have received a good deal of press attention, so the results of these surveys have played a significant role in how the general public regards the quality of primary and secondary education. The large-scale surveys have also attracted the attention of politicians and have changed their opinion in the direction of taking a comparative perspective on learner performance. The notions of the knowledge economy and human capital have gained significance in political debate. The most striking example with respect to the significance of the knowledge economy is that South Korea and Afghanistan were at about the same level of development at the end of the 1950s; 60 years later, they have significant differences because of the South Korean authorities’ emphasis on developing a knowledge economy. A possible contra-indication is that some countries with a relatively low standard of living can boast of relatively good educational results in large-scale international surveys.

An idea related to the knowledge economy is the view (which has seeped into the debate about the school’s role and function) that the various year groups in the school should contribute to a “value chain”. Before the new millennium, the debate about what constitutes an ideal school was polarised and clearly divided along the political spectrum. For instance, the political left in Norway expressed scepticism about the significance of international comparisons (Koritzinsky, 2000). Subsequently, elements of the political left have not only accepted but also highlighted the connection between the school’s functions and economic development. The economic motive is more heavily present than ever before in political discussions about education. Some researchers emphasise the considerable significance of the connection between educational quality and economic growth since all children acquire basic skills; a qualitatively good education increases both production and the growth of productivity, because more people are working and more people are doing so more intelligently (Hanushek & Wößmann, 2010). Other research may suggest that the connection between a country’s ranking in international educational comparisons in maths and sciences and future economic strength is stronger among low-performing than among high-performing countries (Tienken, 2008).

The great surprise in international comparisons of educational quality was the top ranking given to Finland in the first PISA survey. Expressions such as “the Finnish miracle” were used to describe the development of Finnish education. Delegation after delegation (including the author) have visited Finland for a first-hand view of its schooling and teacher education by observing classroom teaching and interviewing learners, teachers, student teachers and teacher trainers. Finnish teacher education has been proposed to have played a significant part in creating this Finnish “miracle”, along with factors such as high teacher autonomy and the prestige accorded teachers in Finnish society. However, a causal connection between the specific features of Finland’s teacher education programmes and the success of its educational system cannot be directly proven. Since Finland was a pioneer in requiring a 5-year research-based master’s degree for primary and secondary school teachers, many other countries have followed suit. The design of Finnish teacher education has thus become a model for other countries. With the exception of the Danish system, primary and secondary school teacher education in all Nordic countries now involves a 5-year professional course, including a research-based master’s dissertation, in addition to all the research-based content over the course of the programme itself. The 5-year master’s course has become the new gold standard for teacher education, but it is not so much the teacher education institutions as external factors that have driven this development. Organisations like the OECD have provided advice to member countries about how they should shape their teacher education programmes. This is an example of transnational “governance”; to an increasing degree, the dynamics of change have been driven by external factors.

There is a pattern in the sequence of presenting the results of large-scale international surveys and subsequent reforms, with Finland remaining the exception. Since PISA 2000 survey was published in 2001, critical attention has been paid to schooling and teacher education programmes. School systems have been reformed, often after expert reviews. Additionally, evaluations have been carried out, followed by reforms of teacher education programmes. For instance, evaluations were carried out in the Danish (2003, 2018 and 2021), Swedish (2004, 2008 and 2018) and Norwegian (2006 and later) teacher education programmes after changes in views on schooling that followed the publication of the inaugural PISA 2000 survey. Teacher education in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland was subjected to criticism. Significant teacher education reforms were then carried out in Norway (2010 and 2017), Sweden (2011 and 2022), Iceland (2008 and 2011) and Denmark (2012/2013). These reforms have themselves since been evaluated, which in turn has led to more discussions and possible changes. In other words, there are significant similarities in the dynamics of the trajectory of teacher education in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. Finnish teacher education, by contrast, has not shown the same dynamic pattern in policy development since the university arrangement was inaugurated in 1979.

Education is intended to lay the foundation for the skills needed for life after schooling (as future employees, engaged citizens, consumers, etc.). As such, teacher education is also viewed in connection with economic forces in society; education, including teacher education, should contribute to strengthening a country’s economic competitiveness. It is therefore particularly interesting to study teacher education in the Nordic countries from a comparative perspective and with a focus on the mutual influences among these countries.

To an increasing degree, teacher education is influenced by transnational development trends. There has been considerable interest in the Finnish teacher education system after its success in large-scale international surveys. With its 5-year research-based teacher education leading to a master’s degree, the Finnish model has been viewed as a yardstick for teacher education provisions in other countries. According to The British Education Research Association (2014), there are four main ways that research can contribute to programmes of teacher education:

  1. 1.

    the content of such programmes may be informed by research-based knowledge and scholarship

  2. 2.

    research can be used to inform the design and structure of teacher education programmes

  3. 3.

    teachers and teacher educators can be equipped to engage with and be discerning consumers of research

  4. 4.

    teachers and teacher educators may be equipped to conduct their own research, individually and collectively, to investigate the impact of particular interventions or to explore the positive and negative effects of educational practice.

We can conclude that primary and secondary school teacher education has been broadened in European countries, which has often led to more academic specialisation (often in a limited number of subject areas), more practice and more subject-based didactics. This series of developments has occurred partly within concurrent models and partly within consecutive ones. There has been a recent tendency towards strengthening concurrent models. Primary and secondary teacher education in particular has integrated models, although the lecturer programmes (Master Studies in Subject Didactics) that qualify teachers for work in lower and upper secondary schools also have elements of integration in their design. Subject didactics have grown into research-based subjects in teacher education programmes. Those programmes have also largely been offered in universities or university colleges where research is conducted, and it has become more important over the years that campus teacher trainers hold a doctorate. Several teacher education institutions have been relocated to universities in Finland (1972), Iceland (2008), Greenland (2008) and the Faroe Islands (2008). In Sweden and Norway, the conversion to universities of educational institutions began in 2010, and the process is not complete. It is likely that more and more university colleges will be transformed into universities in the future. Denmark has chosen a model with 4-year teacher education for the primary and secondary levels at university colleges and a separate course for upper secondary teachers at universities. The conclusion must be drawn that master’s-level teacher education has become widespread in the North, although it is by no means universal across the northern part of the continent.

Teacher education institutions in most European countries have a significant degree of decision-making autonomy within their national frameworks. Research plays a role in developing student teachers’ knowledge of and skills in educational research. This is often linked to writing a bachelor’s or master’s thesis that relates to the field of practice.

The Bologna Declaration directs countries to shift their focus from learning inputs to leaning outcomes. From this perspective, the purpose of teacher education becomes competence goals and skill goals related to what the student should be able to do after the course of study. Many European countries are experiencing a trend towards the use of a skills framework, where the skills that are expected of a teacher are described as goals. The skills framework describes the areas that a teacher should know and be able to execute and often includes academic knowledge, pedagogic and subject-based didactic knowledge and skills in working together with other teachers. These are sometimes formulated as descriptions of general skills; at other times, they are presented in greater detail.

The Bologna Declaration’s aim of exercising control through evaluation and quality assurance has been institutionalised in all the Nordic countries. Most European countries employ some form of evaluation. Since teacher education involves both campus teaching and teaching practice in schools, evaluation can be complicated. External evaluation of teacher education programmes is carried out by independent quality assurance bodies. The evaluators will generally visit the institutions; external experts, student representatives and representatives of the evaluating institution often form part of the evaluators’ group.

Another educational trend is that the PISA subject areas – maths, sciences and reading literacy – have received a great deal of additional attention. In the Nordic countries, there have been special initiatives in these PISA subject areas such as “Maths Promotion” in Sweden and “Make room for reading” in Norway, along with extensive school reforms like the Knowledge-Promotion Reform in Norway. These initiatives and reforms have also been indirectly significant for the content of teacher education and for the introduction of standardised tests and national testing.

The Bologna Declaration also promotes internationalisation through student exchanges, although this element has not had the same impact on teacher education as on other university subject areas. Nevertheless, the participation in study-abroad programmes has increased in the Danish teacher education programme (Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, 2018, p. 21), although with some complications. Other barriers to the trend towards more internationalisation are different structures of teacher education programmes (e.g., school practice periods), national peculiarities and language barriers (Zgaga, 2013). Teacher education entails the coordination of activities and facilities geared towards students in the teaching field. In some universities, coordinating campus teaching with teachers’ school placements is a significant challenge. In practice, this has led to different solutions that in turn creates challenges for tailored adaptations of different study variants and makes student exchange between countries difficult.

The education authorities tend to facilitate the education of young people who are considering higher education in their choice of teaching as a career. For instance, Denmark offers 4-year teacher education programmes. There are also supplementary education programmes that provide competence in teaching, targeting at those who have completed an academic education in another field and find education in the teaching profession appealing. Practical pedagogical education in Norway, “supplementary educational education” in Sweden and “merit teacher education” in Denmark are examples of courses that can be taken by people who have already earned a degree; they can achieve teaching competence by receiving the appropriate level of pedagogical education. These consecutive programmes are important for recruiting teachers in the Scandinavian countries. In 2006, Swedish authorities established “foreign teachers’ continuing education” as a fast-track trajectory. This became a complementary education programme for people with a non-Swedish teaching degree to obtain teacher credentials.

Alternative teacher education programmes have also emerged in the Scandinavian countries, which can be interpreted as an implicit criticism of existing programmes. Many of the alternative programmes fall under the Teach for All network (which multinational corporations lie behind). These programmes primarily portray themselves as altruistic movements that seek to give all children an equal education. For example, a civil engineer is allowed to take a pedagogical supplement and participate in a management programme. The premise is that this person should teach before moving on to another career. This tendency has proven to be particularly strong in England and Wales, where more than 15,000 teachers have chosen this alternative teacher education route. The core of the programme is that candidates aspiring to a professional career in the business world should teach first. This phenomenon shows the porosity between the public and private sectors. Ball (2012) shows that multinational corporations (for instance the international consultancy group McKinsey) lie behind “Teach for All’ movement, which brings the private sector near the foreground.

In the wake of the British success with Teach First, similar alternative teacher education programmes have spread to 14 European countries: Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. However, these alternative programmes have attracted comparatively modest interest in the Scandinavian countries: Teach First Norway admitted 15 students in 2021, Teach First Denmark admitted 45 students in 2021, and Teach for Sweden signed up a record 48 student teachers in 2021. The initiative for the Norwegian Teach First programme came from a Norwegian municipality that developed a teacher education programme in co-operation with Equinor, the state-owned Norwegian energy concern.

10 Economic Conditions and Their Influence on Education

Several scholars have suggested that the Nordic model is under pressure. The digital revolution, globalisation and ageing populations all pose significant challenges for the labour market in the North and for the Nordic welfare model. Productivity plays a crucial role in economic growth and competitiveness. High levels of productivity are a crucial part of the foundation needed to maintain high standards of living in the long run. In European countries, including the Nordic countries, labour productivity growth has largely been declining. Productivity among both Nordic and other European countries has shown signs of weakness that have been exacerbated over the last decade (Szczepański, 2018; Bauer et al., 2020), as South and East Asian economies gained momentum. To some extent, it is also these countries that top the tables measuring knowledge development (PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS). The connection between the education system and economic development is highly complex and likely means less in a Europe characterised by high mobility and migration. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine an education system in decline at the same time as economic life is flourishing. Nevertheless, it would be valuable to reflect on the education systems in these countries with high productivity development over time with Nordic conditions. Can the Nordic model as we know it “survive” in an era of increased global competition, with countries in South and East Asia making progress on virtually all performance indicators? We can begin to address this question by focusing on an example.

The Singaporean “workfare” model (Yue, 2011) stands in stark contrast to the Nordic welfare state model. Singapore has virtually no natural resources, and its population suffered from widespread poverty and illiteracy when the country became an independent state in 1965. Today, roughly half a century later, Singapore has become one of the richest states in the world in terms of per capita GDP. Singapore tops large-scale international education studies and is therefore one of the leading examples of covariation between improvements in school systems and economic development. The “workfare” social model used in Singapore is based on a meritocratic ideal that includes the principle that everyone should have equal opportunities for success, even in education. Singaporean authorities have invested heavily in a differentiated education system (after the sixth level of schooling) as a basis for knowledge-based professional practice and innovation. Among other things, this means that students are placed in different educational tracks relatively early, based on an assessment of their potential (Lim & Tan, 2018). In Singaporean society, school achievements are made more visible than in Nordic countries. This shows the differences in emphasis on school performance between different cultures. Teachers are treated with great esteem in Singapore, and the school culture emphasises intensive learning and thus a drive for performance. The focus of teacher education in Singapore is on shaping the teaching profession such that its requirements, practices and career paths are as clearly defined as those in more established professions like medicine (Mourshed et al., 2010). Singapore’s teacher education programmes have strict entry requirements. These programmes specify high levels of academic and pedagogical knowledge and a well-monitored school practicum.

While the general tendency is for Nordic countries to converge towards an international average, Singapore maintains its place in the top tier. The extent to which these differences are due to systemic differences, cultural conditions or other factors is an unresolved question, as is the notion that school culture in the Nordic countries can learn something from Singapore (or vice versa). On one hand, OECD publications (2016) emphasise that the distinctive features of the educational systems found in several South and East Asian countries are important for follow-up studies and emulation. On the other, the Nordic countries’ common values – focused on democratic understanding and citizenship, low power distance in society and fundamental respect for individual autonomy (Hofstede, 2005; Laursen, 2013) – are also emphasised as valuable characteristics that should be maintained. On the question of what makes an ideal school, several views will arise. One key question is which “story” wins people’s hearts and minds. Should education policy take a more performance-driven direction and thus improve the Nordic countries’ positions on international rankings? Alternatively, should we adhere to the idea of an organisationally undifferentiated school for everyone?

11 Nordic Countries at the Crossroads

As shown in Chap. 1, there are close historical links between the Nordic countries. On the question of education after World War II, the idea of Nordic co-operation has never extended to adopting a common education policy (although grand ideas about co-operation have been proposed, Klette, 2018a, b). However, the countries’ policies show mutual loans of good ideas (for example, “Municipalities that focus on science in schools”, “Partnership between teacher education institutions and practice schools” and the like). Until the turn of the millennium, the national perspective on schooling and education prevailed in the independent Nordic countries’ education policies. This also applied to teacher education. However, the expansion into 9- or 10-year schooling took place, taking inspiration from Swedish policy. After the turn of the millennium, international comparisons and transnational governance became drivers of policy design and quality assessment, often on the advice of the OECD and other international organisations (e.g., the IEA, UNESCO, the IMF, the EU and the WTO). The PISA study and other large-scale surveys like PIRLS and TIMSS have gained great importance in how quality in education is understood by both the general population and politicians. The results of the first measurements after the turn of the millennium were considered unsatisfactory for and by Scandinavian countries. However, some efforts to look for ways to improve the school system were initiated. In response to the mediocre PISA results, for example, Norwegian and Danish education authorities chose quite different educational policy strategies although their results were quite similar (Hernes, 2008). There are also clear examples of the Nordic countries borrowing one another’s educational policy designs (the idea of ‘science municipalities’, ‘follow-up groups to evaluate teacher education reform’, etc.). However, this must still be understood as a limited form of co-operation.

The PISA “crises” set in motion a number of reform measures in all Nordic countries’ education systems, with the exception of Finland. It triggered reform measures for teacher education programmes at about the same time and, in the wake of those reforms, Nordic countries have exchanged expertise, used Nordic benchmarking to study the effects of the measures, stimulated collaboration on Nordic educational research and so on. This can be understood more as a consequence of a common destiny than as transnational collaboration. In the experience of the Scandinavian countries, the goal of educating general teachers with general teaching competence for all of primary and lower secondary school has proven difficult to maintain with professional and pedagogical credibility.

The causal understanding of the PISA “crises” is controversial among educational researchers, but in the political landscape, the PISA results constitute an issue regardless of political alignment. Although the most extreme Scandinavian ideas about student autonomy and the teacher’s facilitating role from the 1990s have faded from prominence, ideas originating in progressive pedagogy are alive and well – albeit newly clothed – in the required curriculum literature for teacher education (Henrekson et al., 2017) and in educational policy documents. Progressive educational ideas still flow from the teacher education and educational administration environments, while the general public is less convinced by progressive education than educators. On this question, there has been a distinction between the Scandinavian countries and Finland, where progressive pedagogy has not produced the same impact on either educational policy-making signals or on actual school practice (Simola, 2015). The Finnish educational tradition has stronger ties to a continental European encyclopaedic knowledge tradition than is the case in the Scandinavian countries. However, in the last years a decline in Finnish students’ learning outcomes has been reported in several investigations. Saarinen (2020) found that some pedagogical practices within the school system, such as frequent use of self-directed learning practices or digital learning material, were found to increase variance in learning outcomes between students coming from different backgrounds in Finland. In Iceland, progressive ideas have been limited for other reasons (Sigurgeirsson, 1998).

The comprehensive school for all and the extension to 9- or the 10-year schooling have been realised over time in each Nordic country. The comprehensive school’s design is the result of politics, political attitudes, the exercise of power and a commitment to compromise. In all Nordic countries, the publicly run comprehensive school has become a municipal responsibility within the framework drawn up by the state. In various ways, however, the Nordic countries have chosen to deal with a factor that undoubtedly affects the teaching profession’s status over time – the increase in wages and the improvement in work conditions. In the Scandinavian countries, governments have decentralised employer responsibility to a joint municipal organisation. The causal perceptions of the consequences of this communication of teachers’ work conditions are doubtless controversial, but the diverse status of the teaching profession in the Nordic countries is indisputable. The OECD’s TALIS 2018 survey showed that, among Nordic countries, only teachers in Finland perceived their profession as appreciated by society (OECD, 2020). Swedish teachers were in the bottom echelon of perceived societal appreciation, and Icelandic and Danish teachers also placed themselves in a relatively low position. The Norwegian teachers’ perception of the teaching profession’s appreciation in society was close to but still somewhat below the international average. There are no equivalent measurements of teachers’ perceptions of society’s appreciation of them from before the turn of the millennium, and it is only in recent years that teacher status measurements have been consistently conducted. Nevertheless, many teachers believe that the status of their profession has declined over a long period of time (Bertilsson, 2011).

The comprehensive and extended school-for-all model has become an important and admired feature of education in the Nordic countries. However, there are signs that the commitment to ensuring school for everyone is about to crack. In the Swedish case, that process actually started in 1991, when the Social Democratic government introduced the right to choose among the home municipality’s schools in combination with allowing private schools to receive state funding. The following year, a conservative–liberal government adopted a policy of making public contributions to private and public schools. Education-focused politicians from conservative parties abroad flocked to Sweden in the 1990s for a closer examination of the Swedish experiment (Bennet, 2018). The Swedish policy contained a generous funding scheme for private schools, which led to greater differences and more segregation. Most importantly, this applied to tendencies towards the segregation of learners and the development of school market for powerful social groups. Today, the Swedish government has committed to developing “a basis for [a] decision that might create stronger conditions for state government for the school” (January Agreement, 2019). Over time, the use of instruments can fluctuate between promoting local solutions and state governance. Time will tell whether the Swedish state wants to take back more of the power that it had earlier delegated to municipalities and private companies. Some antecedents to this have already occurred through state control of teachers’ formal qualifications.

There are also signs of divisions within the Nordic countries that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. Dealing with the 2015 refugee crisis led to closed borders, and the COVID crisis in 2020 and 2021 did the same. Are these the first signs of a greater distance and thus a weakening of the spirit of co-operation between the Nordic countries? Nordic co-operation is still celebrated when prime ministers meet for annual meetings, but we can sense cracks behind the sweet talk.

In education, segregation means that many young people attend schools with learners resembling themselves in socioeconomic and ethnic terms. Segregation further weakens the realisation of equality in the Nordic school model. These trends are particularly marked in Sweden (Kornhall & Bender, 2018) and Denmark (Hansen, 2011). The intention to create diversity in the types of public schools in Norway could also contribute to weakening the realisation of the comprehensive school. For example, one political party proposes to “establish several profile schools at the junior level, so that the lower secondary school provision becomes more diverse and that learners can immerse themselves in different areas” (The Conservative, 2018). The Swedish authorities announced in 2022 experimental activities with nationwide advanced classes in theoretical subjects in primary school and in secondary education (Tidö-Agreement, 2022). In 2018, the Danish government proposed the creation of a new, hybrid school variant – autonomous schools – which comprised a mix of public and private schools (Danmarks Radio, 2018), but the proposal did not achieve sufficient political support to be put into practice. In January 2019, however, several political parties entered into an agreement on a renewal of the public comprehensive school (Agreement, 2019). Several features of the development indicate tendencies towards greater heterogeneity in the schools’ offerings of courses and arrangements. The fine aspects of adjusting the school’s funding model can also contribute to weakening the comprehensive school’s realisation. The tension between equality values and the need for differentiation appears to emerge in ever-new forms, and the future of the comprehensive and extended school for all should be a matter for further public debate.

While in-country discussions about what a “good” school means were typical before the turn of the millennium, international comparisons relying on large-scale quantitative studies have become far more important since then. In the political debate on quality development in schools, this perspective of comparison is sometimes dominant.

An embarrassing incident occurred when the Swedish National Audit Office directed harsh criticism at both the National Agency for Education and the government: Sweden incorrectly exempted a large proportion of students from PISA 2018, in violation of the official regulations. The latest PISA survey was presented as a message of joy for the Swedish school. The Swedish PISA results were criticized by both researchers and the Swedish press when they were published because the sample of students was biased. Subsequent investigation has shown that the critics were right: the results showed a false progress (National Audit Office, 2021). The question was whether one could trust the Swedish authorities’ handling of international investigations. This also illustrates the importance of arguments from international studies of student assessment in the debate about what constitutes a good school.

“We must have the best school in the world” is an expression used by the rhetoric policymakers to justify their political approaches. What constitutes the “best school in the world” depends on the criteria one chooses to make such an assessment, but the aspiration to excel in PISA is linked to the political debate expressed in this statement: “In ten years, Sweden will be among the top ten in the knowledge measurement PISA” (The Alliance, 2018). Almost the same parties that make up the majority in parliament recently stated, “The goal is to raise the knowledge results in the Swedish school” (Tidö-Agreement, 2022). An echo of this excellence talk also concerns teachers: “Denmark must have world-class educators” (Halsboe-Jørgensen, 2021).

Visions can serve to inspire effort; they can be unifying and mobilising for everyone involved in schools and teacher education. From 2001 onwards, it has been an important goal for politicians in the Scandinavian countries and Iceland to enable their respective countries to rise in the PISA rankings. The large-scale surveys that have become popular over the last 20 years provide central empirical data that form the basis of the perception that comprehensive and extended school models in Scandinavian countries are mediocre in terms of outcome. In the nearly two decades since the breakthrough of large-scale surveys, performance improvement has been quite limited, even as policies have been oriented towards achieving a higher ranking. Educational debate can be served by an orientation to reality and by value-based reflection.

The road to better schools and a better teacher education system is winding, and it can be difficult to navigate between conflicting and even contradictory desires. However, two simple questions are:

  • What kind of experience do children need in order to grow and learn, to develop the confidence and competence they need to succeed in life?

  • What kind of knowledge do teachers need to have in order to facilitate these experiences (Bransford et al., 2005, 20–21)

With such a starting point, it is easier to navigate between Scylla’s exaggerated academic mission and Charybdis’ exaggerated professional mission. Both dangers are real for today’s teacher education.

In practical solutions to difficult dilemmas, there may be gaps between intention and reality. For example, the practice of organisational differentiation appears to be widespread in Norwegian schools (Hatlevik & Rohatgi, 2016), although Norwegian legislation explicitly prohibits typical organisational differentiation. A critical question is whether the ideals of the Nordic school model and PISA-inspired effective and efficient facilities in the educational structure are fundamentally compatible. If they are not, the natural conclusion is that there must be a trade-off between them. Could the ideas about the comprehensive and extended school for all and its ideals or equality be challenged over time if politicians and educational administrators continue to emphasise stronger performance-effective instruments in educational policymaking? Moreover, how should other quality aspects, such as learner satisfaction and well-being, be balanced against PISA-inspired effective and efficient facilities?

There is a trade-off between the qualities of the comprehensive school system and the more traditional school systems that put more pressure on learners and assign them to learning tracks. Often this traditional arrangement leads to better achievement (Opheim et al., 2010). In the political debate surrounding this issue, such fundamental questions are rarely posed, but the quality of the debate can be improved by a more reality-oriented approach that considers actual cases and takes a position on difficult trade-offs. Political sweet talk can easily appear to be rhetorical incantations that the Nordic countries should have the world’s best school as measured through PISA’s ranking list. Instead, we should ask what type of school we want to have. The comprehensive and extended school’s dilemmas are also the teacher’s dilemmas because the questions of what makes an ideal school and an exemplary teacher education are deeply and inherently linked.