1 Introduction

The first organized school in Norway was established in 1153 by a representative of the pope; cathedral schools were established at the diocesan offices in Oslo, Bergen and Hamar. The medieval bishops had their own schools to educate priests, so cities with Catholic bishops had cathedral schools and monastery schools. After the Lutheran reformation in Norway (1537), cathedral schools were transformed into so-called Latin schools, and all market towns were required to have such a school. Only a small part of the population attended Latin schools, with most of the people remaining illiterate. The introduction of an ecclesiastical confirmation in 1736 became an important prerequisite for compulsory schooling in Norway (school ordinance from 1739). Thus, the Lutheran church played a central role in the operation of schools. The priest’s task was either to teach the children himself or arrange instruction for those to be confirmed. Priests selected and trained young people who were fit for this task (Dahl, 1959).

The first institutionalized teacher education in Norway were Seminarium Scholasticum and Seminarium Domesticum (and later: Seminarium Lapponicum) in Trondheim (which in the years 1717–1732 served as a seminar for the missionaries, catechists and teachers; Skjelmo, 2013). This teacher seminary was initiated by the Danish Society for promoting Christian knowledge. The purpose was to train missionaries, catechists and schoolmasters to teach the Sámi population in Finnmark.

International educational trends had impact on the establishment of teacher education in Norway. These ideas came to Norway especially via Blaagaard Seminarium in Copenhagen, a teacher education institution the Dano-Norwegian Realm established in 1791. However, few Norwegian teachers were educated at the Blaagaard Seminarium and Seminarium pædagogicum in the 1790s and beyond. After returning to Norway, they worked in Norwegian schools (; Markussen, 2005Sigmund, 1916).

The first publicly funded teacher education in Norway began in 1826; within a few years, teacher seminaries (renamed lærerskole in 1902) were established throughout Norway in the 1830s and later. In 1842, the parliament (Storting) established a permanent budget for teacher education in Norway (Hommerstad, 2018). The schools were initially organized in parallel systems: schools for rural people, schools for urban citizens and schools for those aiming for higher education.

Four teacher seminaries were created in the 1830s. But the educational capacity was too small in relation to the needs: in 1860 only 38% of the teachers had their education from the teacher seminaries (Myhre, 1991). In the middle of the nineteenth century, schooling became both a right and a duty. Local authorities gained greater influence over curricula, and the school system became important for building a stronger national consciousness. The idea of changing the school system into a common school for all children, a comprehensive school system (the Norwegian term enhetsskole first appeared in 1913), dates to the mid-1800s. Two examples can be linked to the year 1850, when Marcus Thrane and Gustav Thaulow, respectively, suggested improvements in school provision for all children.

There were a number of improvements to the school in the latter half of the nineteenth century. A significant increase in teachers’ education occurred: in 1890, almost all (96%) teachers had a teacher education (Myhre, 1991). 12% of these were female teachers. This change must be seen in the context of a number of other improvements (school buildings, textbooks, school subjects).

The evolution towards the modern school system was slow. In 1920, however, a comprehensive school decision – which was really a budget decision – was made in the Storting, which meant comprehensive, primary schooling (‘enhetskole’) was implemented in Norway starting in the 1921–1922 school year. This decision was of immense importance for the concept of the comprehensive school, and the decision put Norwegian education in a special position from an international perspective. In the 1930s, the model of the seven-year primary school was understood as a comprehensive school, fortified as a school model in Norway by law. Against this historical background, the purpose of this chapter is to discuss the development of teacher education for this comprehensive school system.

2 Teacher Education Accommodated the Comprehensive School System

From a historical perspective, three teacher education pathways exist in Norway: (1) the seminary tradition for training primary (and later lower secondary) schoolteachers; (2) an academic tradition that has equipped both lower and upper secondary school teachers with university-level qualifications; and (3) vocational teacher training with a history that builds on the apprenticeship and guild traditions. Kindergarten teacher education in Norway has also been established, and these traditions have existed side by side in separate parts of Norway’s teacher education system.

From the mid-1960s onwards, the comprehensive school model has had implications for the design of teacher education. One of the main motives for the development of the comprehensive school’s structure and content was the notion that school should contribute to social equality. Starting in the 1976, an undifferentiated lower secondary school became the instrument of social equalization. Teachers who were educated at universities were given the right to teach their subjects at the lower levels, but teacher seminary-educated general teachers were also provided with the competence to teach in lower secondary school.

Comprehensive school teacher education gradually became class teacher education delivered by teacher education seminaries. This educational variant was based partly on the art degree (a two-year teacher seminar for students with an upper secondary school education) and partly on the entrance examination (a four-year teacher seminar for students without upper secondary school education). A good number of teacher education programmes developed similar models, including the two years + one year + one year model. Taking the teacher examination after two years of educational studies plus one year of undergraduate studies became a common pathway to a teaching position (Norwegian Ministry of Church and Education, 1968). A 1961 act offered the opportunity for teachers educated in seminaries to gain adjunct competence by pursuing further education. In 1970, it became possible to receive additional education by taking short study units of half a year’s length. At the universities, the shortest study unit in teacher education at that time was one year of full-time studies, mainly in the humanities and social sciences (the science subjects had smaller study components that could be combined into larger units), while the teacher seminaries offered half-year units. As a result, universities lost their monopoly position on educating teachers with adjunct competence, and teachers with a solely general education were often employed instead of university graduates, especially in smaller schools (Rovde, 2004, 42 and 101–104).

In 1973, teacher seminaries became teacher education colleges offering three-year programmes. This approach to teacher education was called the general teacher education programme because it qualified teachers to teach in all school subjects throughout the primary and the lower secondary school levels. Student teachers were allowed to create their own collection of subjects, which led to many subjects central to the curriculum (e.g., mathematics and English) not being chosen.

The Norwegian Teachers’ Union (Norsk lærerlag), which represented teachers with general teacher education, supported the extension of mandatory school to nine years and gained full admission for its members as teachers accredited to deliver instruction in all subjects in the new lower secondary schools. The Labour Party did not want the teachers from the universities to hold a dominant position in the new lower secondary stage and thus welcomed teachers from the general teacher education programme. The Norwegian Teachers’ Union agreed that no specialization in any school subject should have a duration of more than six months. The Norwegian Teachers’ Union’s slogan – ‘The unitary [comprehensive] school needs unitary teachers,’ which meant teachers educated at teacher colleges – was consistent with the prevailing ideas among key school politicians in the Labour Party from the 1950s through the 1970s (Rovde, 2004, 101–104; Slagstad, 1998, 325).

At the beginning of the 1980s, the Norwegian Teachers’ Union proposed that teacher education be extended to four years, which the Storting ultimately approved in 1992. Essentially, teacher education retained its general character, with many short-term study units that provided teachers with broad teaching competence. Academic specialization in the three- and the four-year models of general teacher education often meant short-term education in several subject components.

In the 1980s and 1990s and through the turn of the millennium, the number of primary applicants for the general teacher education declined (Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education [NOKUT], 2004), and the average grade level among those applicants dropped over time. The media also focused on poor academic results. The question of academic results became especially pressing after the turn of the millennium, when large-scale international surveys showed only an average level of knowledge in mathematics, science and reading literacy among Norway’s lower secondary school learners. Knowledge was emphasized more strongly in an effort known as the Knowledge Promotion (which became a reform of the 10-year compulsory school and of upper secondary education and training).

Teachers’ academic knowledge of their subjects was debated after the millennium. In 2004, NOKUT was commissioned to carry out an evaluation of teacher education in Norway. The expert group presented its recommendations in 2006 and concluded that the quality of teacher education varied enormously, with the lack of integration of practice, professional studies, professional didactics and educational theory a major challenge. The lack of wholeness and connection between theory and practice was evident. The report became a starting point for changing teacher education in Norway. In a 2009 parliamentary report, the name ‘general teacher education’ was replaced by programmes in primary and lower secondary teacher education (PLS), which was a four-year differentiated education until 2017. In this programme, teacher competence for grades 1–7 was reduced to four teaching subjects, and teacher competence for grades 5–10 would normally consist of three teaching subjects, each with a scope of 60 credits. In 2017, the government announced that a five-year master’s degree programme for teachers in the compulsory school should be investigated (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2009). The term enhetsskole was abandoned in departmental documents in connection with the Knowledge Promotion school reform, with the term ‘common school’ (fellesskole) used instead (Thuen, 2010).

The task of an expert PLS advisory group was to evaluate the introduction of the reformed PLS teacher education between 2011 and 2015. The PLS advisory group believed that the reform had made good progress in the work on practice and professional correction but pointed out that, among other things, questions about education’s research base, recruitment, dropout rates and internationalization were not addressed to a satisfactory level (Munthe & Rogne, 2015).

In 2013, after eight years of a red-green (left-leaning) government, a liberal-conservative government took over until 2021. Through an initiative called the Promotion of the Status and Quality of Teachers, this government has sought to strengthen the school-related side of teachers’ formal competence. The five-year primary and lower secondary teacher education (i.e., the PLS) was elevated to the master’s level in 2017. The one-year programme in educational theory and practice (the Postgraduate General Certificate of Education, consisting of 60 credits) was still offered. This programme’s candidates must (with some exceptions) already hold a master’s degree. The former general teacher education programme was divided into separate programmes for grades 1–7 and 5–10 to ensure specialization in three or four and two or three teaching subjects, respectively. The new five-year programme in teacher education institutions began in 2017. As reasons for the reform, several issues were noted: students’ low time on task, grade inflation, inadequate recruitment and high dropout rates in the existing teacher education framework. The master’s degree programme has to provide competence in academic subjects, school subjects and managing individual learners and groups of learners in learning situations. Teacher education was to integrate all these elements, and the specialization that student teachers chose assigned different weights to educational theory (pedagogikk), subjects and subject didactics.

With the master’s supplement, the government wanted to give teachers more academic weight in their work. The master’s-level education is intended to equip student teachers with better academic, professional didactic and pedagogical competence, with the intention of strengthening their learners’ learning outcomes. It should also provide greater insights into research and development (R&D) work and scientific methods, along with a greater ability to analyse and reflect on one’s own practice. Work with master’s theses, with their emphasis on R&D-based or ‘clinical‘practice training, is intended to help student teachers integrate theory and practice and make education more relevant to the actual needs of today’s Norwegian schools:

Teachers need to acquire solid, research-based skills and to have access to continued professional development within a professional learning community in order to make informed decisions in their day-to-day work in kindergartens and schools (p. 5).

An international advisory panel for primary and lower secondary teacher education conclude that the new master’s programmes for PLS teacher education represent an internationally distinctive and remarkably ambitious reform based on high expectations for student teachers, for university/college-based and school-based teacher educators (NOKUT, 2020). The inspiration by Finnish teacher education (Westbury et al., 2005) is clear. Compulsory content in religion, beliefs and ethics (combined in a module equivalent to 15 credits) is intended to strengthen teacher competence in a multicultural and multireligious Norway. Additionally, everyone who graduates with a master’s degree in teacher education must have professional digital skills. These are examples of modernization intentions that are to some extent ideologically driven.

For teacher education at universities, the degree reforms in 1905, 1920 and 1960 created academic frameworks with basic units like secondary/major or basic/intermediate/major (Jarning, 2013). The pattern of a lower degree with teaching competence in several subjects was predominant throughout the twentieth century. After the Joint Declaration of the European Ministers of Education (the Bologna Declaration), the old degree structure in Norway was replaced with a new, common structure with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, along with a PhD. The universities have thus abolished the traditional six to seven years of Lektor (‘lecturer’) education, which provided solid competence to teach in three school subjects. In today’s five-year master’s Lektor programmes, two school subjects are typical.

3 New Competence Requirements for Teachers

In 2014, specific minimum standards for teaching in Norwegian schools were introduced. Every Norwegian teacher education programme remained under national curriculum regulations. Teachers who teach central school subjects (e.g., English, mathematics or Norwegian) at grades 1–7 must have 30 credits in those subjects. At the junior level (and in upper secondary school), 60 credits are required to teach core subjects. Teachers who fulfilled the recruitment requirements before 2014 received a limited exemption from the requirements through 2025, but a new red-green government (a coalition of the Labour Party and the Centre Party) eliminated this standard in 2022. This new government wants to “make teacher education more practical and relevant to practice and make the last year of teacher education more vocationally relevant, with more practice”. At the time of writing (May 2022), this intention has not yet been realized. But some indications of a practical turn can be seen: the government has prioritized the practical and aesthetic subjects so that teachers (at the expense of teachers of mathematics, Norwegian and science) can be offered further education in these subjects. Another change is the tightening of opportunities to start private schools. In 2013–21, the number of private schools increased by almost 30%. The new government wants more austerity measures in the coming years by giving local elected representatives more influence over the approval, financing and management of private schools.

4 Teacher Needs, Admission Requirements and Graduate Production

In 2005 onwards, 35 school credits, along with a grade of 3 in Norwegian and mathematics from upper secondary school, was required for admission to teacher education. Admission requirements were increased 2016–2021; the grade requirement in mathematics went from grade 3 to grade 4 for applicants to teacher education programmes. An investigation (NIFU, 2021) shows that student teachers have actually completed teacher training faster since the introduction of the grade 4 requirement: more students are completing their teacher training without delay. Of the students who started primary school teacher education in 2016, 7% more completed the programme in the standard time than those who started the year before. From 2022, there are two alternative paths to teacher education. Applicants must now have at least 40 school credits and a grade of 3 in mathematics and Norwegian, or at least 35 school credits, 3 in Norwegian and 4 in mathematics. These new requirements are expected to provide more qualified applicants.

The number of first-choice applications for teacher education decreased between 2003 and 2008, increased for grades 1–7 from 2010 to 2015 and increased for grades 5 to 10 in 2010–2018. After historically high application numbers for teacher education programmes, there has been an overall decline of applicants. The grade requirement in mathematics for admission to primary and lower secondary school teacher education and students’ preference for specific teacher education institutions may help explain why enrolment in teacher education has not reached full capacity. Many study places in teacher education were and remain vacant. The situation for recruitment to teacher education and the teaching profession in parts of northern Norway and to some extent in rural districts is an ongoing issue.

The total number of newly qualified teachers increased steadily from 2010 to 2015 but has been somewhat uneven since then. There was a decreasing trend 2020–2022 (Tresse, 2022). The need for primary school teachers is illustrated by the growing number of learners in primary school. There has been a relatively stable proportion of newly qualified teachers entering the school sector in the same year as their graduation. Each year, around 6500 teachers (including daycare teachers) take their final examination in Norway and approximately 25,000 students are enrolled in teacher education at any given time. The total number of newly qualified teachers (with reservation for nuances) has increased steadily. However, the large number of dropouts (approximately 27%–40% in the different teacher education programmes) along the way poses a challenge. Despite the relatively stable proportion of primary school teachers who work in schools in the year of their graduation and the subsequent year, there is a significant dropout rate after five years in the profession. The Lektor programmes (grades 8–13) recruit student teachers with good grades from upper secondary school, but Lektor students have very low completion rates: only three out of ten student teachers complete the programme as planned (NOKUT, 2022). The number of teachers outside the teaching profession is about 30,000. About 15% of teachers in primary and lower secondary school do not have adequate teacher education, while about 21% of teachers in upper secondary education lack formal qualifications (Gosh, 2020). In the current situation, it must also be considered a teacher shortage that 21% of Norwegian lower secondary learners attend schools in which the principals answer ‘to some extent’ or ‘much’ to the question of whether the teaching situation in school is hampered by a lack of teachers or the presence of teachers of lesser quality (Hatlevik & Rohatgi, 2016).

Several factors influence future teacher needs. The Storting has adopted a maximum number of learners per teacher that will increase the demand for newly qualified teachers. Starting in fall 2019, the goal was to have a teacher for every 15 learners in grades 1–4 and a teacher for every 20 learners in grades 5–10. However, due to the teacher shortage, this teacher norm also means that teachers are moving from the outskirts to central areas. Statistics Norway (2021) calculates a teacher deficit of primary and lower secondary school teachers through 2025, but there may be a surplus of such teachers between then and 2040, with the decline in Norway’s population growth the main explanation.

5 Training to Teach in Practice

From the beginning of teacher education in Norway in the early 1800s, state and municipal training schools were established to ensure academically sound school practice for student teachers. Most of these schools were closed during the 1980s, but there is now a strong focus on schools, often called ‘university schools’, for student teachers to practice, (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2017). These are designed as primary and secondary schools where qualified school-based mentors and teacher educators work closely together on practical training. A number of evaluations and research articles have pointed out that achieving a robust connection between theory and practice is challenging (e.g., Smeby & Heggen, 2014). Therefore, in recent reforms, the school practice components of teacher education have been strengthened, as the number of days of supervised practice has been increased. Additionally, observational practice and possible contact with a practice school are included in the work on the master’s thesis. Practical training is compulsory and driven by a nationally determined curriculum.

Research on student teachers’ practice training is a relatively unexplored phenomenon. A systematic review of teacher education research in the 2000–2010 period shows only 23 publications on Norwegian teacher education and even fewer publications on practice training (Haugan, 2011). Only two studies have examined the contributions of teacher educators during practical training. In one such effort, Granlund (2013) states:

Common to the subject teachers was that in the interviews they did not believe that they had received instructions from the college regarding anything special to look for during the visit, but that it was largely up to the students themselves. … This is also what I found in the study of practice training. It is individualised and left to the individual. Such training is intended both in the action and reflection model of Handal and Lauvås and in an academic training model. (pp. 168, 182).

Some studies show that many student teachers are critical of the quality of the practice aspect of their education (e.g., NOKUT, 2021), pointing out problems like inadequate supervisory competence, high workloads, scarcely relevant practical training, and poor communication among students, the workplace and the university or college. At the same time, it must be noted that many student teachers are satisfied with their practical training. Nonetheless, there is a clearly significant inconsistency among practice training arrangements.

Universities and colleges are responsible for the quality assurance of all parts of a teacher education programme, including practice. This responsibility includes ensuring that the practice component is well integrated with the programme’s theory component. However, practice schools are not governed by teacher education institutions, and there can be several challenges in finding good solutions. The PLS advisory group (2015) points to ‘signs that some school owners and primary schools have not taken in the consequence of PLS reform’ (p. 128). The lack of collaborative arenas has also made it difficult to form R&D partnerships between practice schools and teacher education institutions. Better collaboration between schools and the teacher education sector is one of the four overarching goals of the new national strategy for quality and collaboration in teacher education (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2017). The government is contributing funds to develop partnerships between teacher education institutions and owners of primary and lower secondary schools. A national framework for such partnerships has been established, and the National Council for Teacher Education is responsible for these improvement efforts.

The Advisory Council for Teacher Education 2025 was established in connection with the national strategy Teacher Education 2025 in Norway. The Council provides professionally based analyses and recommendations for use in the follow-up of the strategy. Based on professional assessments, the Council shall provide the Government and the National Council for Teacher Education, where the parties are represented, recommendations to achieve the goals of the national strategy Teacher Education 2025. The Council’s work is grounded in the research-based and experience-based knowledge that the members have as representatives from teacher education and the education sector. As such, the Council’s knowledge base is founded on the members’ collective complementary knowledge and their ability to obtain and process new knowledge and experiences from the sector. The Council has claimed some principles for partnerships between instutions and practice schools (for instance, the student teachers have right to a high-quality teacher education) that should apply and is of the view that the enactment of regulations can help ensure a certain level of equality and reduce unintended disparities between teacher education programmes (Advisory Council for Teacher Education, 2020).

Each teacher education institution is now supposed to have a few partner schools that can be hubs for improvements. There, students, teachers, school-based mentors and teacher educators are supposed to test teaching and working methods that may help develop both teacher education and schools.

National authorities vary in their views of the trade-off between delegation (e.g., assigning Universities Norway [UHR]- Universities Norway, the Council for Teacher Education the responsibility for issuing the national guidelines) and state governance (e.g., national examinations in certain teacher education subjects). The authorities’ strategies also illustrate the limitations of the scope of the national education policy, in which the activities of teacher education institutions, the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS) and individual municipalities and schools all have an impact on the quality of teacher education. The effects of the management of practice training therefore depend on complex interactions among many actors, including state education authorities, teacher education institutions, municipalities and counties and practice schools. This trend is in line with a broad trend in the public sector. The increasing diversity and greater complexity of Norwegian society have been influenced by the strategies of individual institutions. In the complex process of ‘governance’ (Ansell & Torfing, 2016), the emphasis shifts from the top down to interactions among different actors and more complex organizational forms of governance. The new governance models represent the spread of power and the weakening of traditional political-administrative governance. To compensate for the lack of a national policy, Universities Norway has established the Council for Teacher Education, which is an arena for cooperation on quality development, academic division of labour and coordination among Norwegian teacher education institutions. Further, the Ministry of Education has established an Advisory Council for Teacher Education.

In future research, it will be important to understand how interactions among national education authorities, councils, teacher education institutions, school owners and schools work and how interaction patterns change. These issues will have an impact on how campus teaching and training relate to each other in the teacher education of the future.

6 Students’ Perceptions of Study Programme Quality

A national student survey (Studiebarometeret) in Norway asks students about their perceptions of the educational quality of their programmes (NOKUT, 2021), and most of the country’s educational variants are included. The PLS students are at least satisfied with their study programmes. However, the student teachers’ assessment of the quality of their school practice indicates a wide range of responses (NOKUT, 2021). This means that some students are very satisfied, while others are quite dissatisfied. Except for the quality indicator ‘attachment to working life’, PLS student teachers rank the other quality indicators (teaching, feedback and mentoring, learning environment, organization, assessment forms, participation, inspiration, practice, own involvement and expectations) below or near the average of all studies. The Studiebarometeret is used in political debates about student quality in teacher education. In spring 2019, several politicians posed critical questions to the government about the quality of teacher education, and the survey results were a key factor in the debate (Stortinget, 2019a). This shows the importance of measurements to the public discourse on good teacher education.

7 Debate on the Educational Theory Subject in Teacher Education

Educational theory (pedagogikk) emerged as a component of teacher education in the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth. In the 1930s, it became a central subject in general teacher education. In the 1890s, it was taught for only one hour every week, but in the education plan of 1938, educational theory was to take up ten hours every week in the two-year programme and nine hours every week in the four-year programme. This increase was an expression of both a new understanding of the role and function of educational theory in teacher education and the first changes in how the teacher’s work was viewed. After the 1938 plan began, educational theory as a university subject was dominated by educational psychology, but through the end of the 1950s, the Norwegian teacher education curriculum defined educational theory as a composite subject in which the written examination paper could draw on one of three main topics: psychology, educational history and didactics (Harbo, 1987, 124–130; Telhaug, 2008, 77–79).

The teachers unions were the motive force behind the institution of educational theory as a new academic subject that was established at the University of Oslo. The belief that educational-psychological research could provide a basis for action among teachers in school was expressed through the hopes for more scientific-based teaching and school development. In 1934, the teachers unions demanded the rapid establishment of an educational research institute at the University of Oslo and wanted an increase in scientific research in schools to obtain a more solid research-based foundation for school activities (Helsvig, 2005, 31–36).

Educational theory as a subject became a central tool in attempts to gain a scientific understanding of teaching and teachers’ work, and theoretical and scientific knowledge was expected to have an impact on the practical activities in schools. Following the same basic ideas, the Labour Party’s major school politicians justified their policy by defining school reform as ‘applied science in the field of psychology and educational theory’ (Slagstad, 1998, 328–332).

The belief in scientific knowledge as the foundation for teachers’ work and school policy and its place in educational theory arose from the increasing influence of emerging natural science-inspired psychology. However, teacher education in Norway was characterized by tensions between subject disciplines and educational theory, especially in the 1970s. In educational theory, criticism lodged by the philosopher Hans Skjervheim gained a great deal of influence. Skjervheim criticized the dominant pedagogical research paradigm for establishing an instrumentalist perspective on both research and teaching in schools. His criticism was aimed at a research approach that he believed was too strongly characterized by science and by the attitude that defined other people as objects.

Skjervheim’s alternative was a philosophical concept of dialogue that he considered basic to educational theory; the teacher’s intention should be to convince students through a genuine, objective and open dialogue rather than persuading them by manipulative and rhetorical means (Gradovski, 2008). In debates among educators, Skjervheim’s criticism of instrumentalism has specifically been used as an argument against working with operative knowledge in teacher education. Instead, reflection has focused on educational theory teaching and mentoring in practice teaching, while the application of ideas, concepts and thoughts in practical teaching has largely been left to the student teachers themselves (Granlund, 2013).

The Labour Party several times referred to educational research to justify its school policy, but at the same time used pragmatic considerations to realize its main instrumental goal for school reform; namely, that schools should contribute to social equality (Helsvig, 2005, 78–85; Rovde, 2004, 42–44). The instrumentalist motive has remained relevant in recent years; in spring 2019, four Labour Party politicians proposed that the government should promote ‘a good national system for sharing quality-assured and research-based teaching and learning programmes for student teachers’ (Stortinget, 2019a). Similar ideas about research-based foundations for the exercise of the teaching profession can also be found in the KS’s strategy (, 2013); it has argued for introducing a ‘common teaching repertoire’. In other words, the question of a research-based foundation for student teacher training in practice and for pursuing the teaching profession is far from settled. As of this writing, national solutions for access to open learning resources across higher education institutions are being explored. The Digital Learning Resources service has offered to document, store, share and publish digital learning resources for educators in higher education, and a working group under the auspices of UHR-Teacher Education is preparing a knowledge portal for Norwegian teacher education that will facilitate systematic, knowledge-based experience sharing (Nybø, 2019). Furthermore, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2019) will establish a global video library dedicated to teaching called Global Teaching InSights.

8 The Heyday of Progressive Pedagogy

Academically trained educators with university degrees in educational theory took over key management positions in the Norwegian school system. At the national, regional and local levels, a learner-oriented, anti-authoritarian and psychologically based educational theory took on the role of a knowledge regime with attachments to both the institutional structures in the school system and educational theory as a professional subject in teacher education (Telhaug, 2008, 115–132).

In the heyday of neo-radical pedagogy, a network of schoolchildren and educators was committed to pushing through the new principles of teaching and school development. The dissemination of the new educational theory passed from expert councils and school administrators to the municipalities, which built up educational mentoring services that worked in the same spirit. Key people in the Norwegian Teachers’ Union (which represented primary school teachers) announced their preference for the new anti-authoritarian educational theory. For example, its member magazine quoted the Labour Party politician and former chairman of the Research Council, Hjalmar Seim, as saying that teachers should no longer be subject-matter experts but ‘supervisors for children and youth’ (Rovde, 2004, 95). The union’s leaders argued that the social side of education was more important than academic achievement (Rovde, 2004, 108).

9 Educational Theory Subject in Teacher Education

During the 1973 teacher education programme reforms, practice training became closely linked to educational theory, with educational theory and practice jointly accounting for one-third of the total time spent by student teachers on their education. In the 1980s and the 1990s, the Norwegian Teachers’ Union and pedagogical subject expertise lost significant influence on reform work within schools and teacher education. The expert councils in departments disappeared during the 1990s. With the 1992 reform, teacher training was extended to four years. At the same time, educational theory expanded to 30 credits, while subject studies also gained more space in the curriculum. Under the 2010 reform, educational theory increased to 60 credits while broad profession-oriented assignments were combined under the new ‘educational theory and learner knowledge’ subject. The coordinating function of educational theory was emphasized in national governing documents.

There are several reasons why political and professional reforms have focused on educational theory. There is a tension between leading politicians’ and academic communities’ views on the role of teachers and teaching. Since the 1990s, national policy documents have pointed to the knowledgeable and didactically competent teacher as key to creating the ideal school, and policy documents related to recent reforms in teacher education also highlight each teacher’s importance for student learning and school development (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2014).

Researchers have described educational theory in teacher education as having an unclear scope as an academic, research-oriented subject with a foothold in university studies, in contrast to the neo-radical educational theory that argues for the teacher’s supposed role, to a greater extent than was traditional, as facilitator and organiser (NOKUT, 2006). Historically, educational theory has not found a unifying profile as either a scientific discipline or professional subject with a clear relevance to teaching in school. The educational theory course was ambiguous and lacked a unifying professional orientation. An examination of the curricula for educational theory in general teacher education showed great variations in the knowledge base. At the same time, general teacher education did not sufficiently thematise operational knowledge to ensure that students received a good introduction to the teaching profession (NOKUT, 2006). Educational theory has become a professional middle ground without an adequate foothold in didactic professional traditions that are able to combine teaching knowledge and professional training with relevant research (Fossøy & Sataøen, 2010; Haug, 2008; Hjardemaal, 2009; Skagen, 2010; Telhaug, 2008, 85–94).

The new teacher education programmes for primary and lower secondary schools and the subsequently adopted master’s degree programme envision a new place for educational theory as an academic subject, but there is as yet no comprehensive research on how the various institutions have designed the new view of the teaching profession in their study programmes.

10 The Evolution of Subject Didactics

In the early variants of teacher education, a schism emerged between educational theory and the academic subjects, which was reflected in both structure and content. However, a combination of subject knowledge and operational knowledge developed over the years in the teacher education colleges and the universities offering the Postgraduate General Certificate of Education, while educational theory concentrated on theoretical issues. From 1973 onwards, subject methodology was replaced by subject didactics (Fagdidaktikk) as a study topic. Subject didactics is associated with the German term Didaktik, which focuses on what should be taught and learned, how to do so and for what purpose (Gundem, 1998). Subject didactics relate to a particular subject area. Subject didactics entered general teacher education in the 1974 curriculum in a revision of methodological training. The key people in this process were Trond Ålvik, Bjørg Gundem, Svein Sjøberg and Stieg Mellin-Olsen (all professors of subject didactics). During the same period, subject didactics entered the universities’ teacher education programmes (Skagen & Tiller, 1983). Over time, subject didactics has grown as both a teacher education subject and an object of research.

11 Mentoring Scheme for Newly Qualified Teachers

Several studies in international research divide teacher qualification in three different phases: education, induction and continuing education. From this perspective, the Norwegian authorities have traditionally focused on the first phase, although the mentoring scheme has been strengthened and resources for continuing education have increased in recent years. Nonetheless, much remains to be done before the mentoring system for newly hired teachers will have a systematic academic foundation nationwide consistency.

A mentoring pilot project for newly qualified teachers began in 1997, with a full-fledged mentoring scheme established in 2003. In February 2009, the Ministry of Education and KS signed a letter of intent to guide newly qualified schoolteachers and kindergarten teachers. The 2014 agreement between the ministry and KS on quality development in kindergarten and basic education contains a point about the mentoring scheme, which has also been strengthened in connection with the master’s degree reform. An evaluation of the scheme shows that many teachers experience a ‘practice shock’ in their transition from education to the profession; 74% of supervisors and 59% of newly qualified teachers under the mentoring scheme agreed that the transition was so demanding that it could be called a ‘shock’ (Rambøll., 2016). Graduates who received mentoring in school were more satisfied with their initial time as teachers than graduates who did not receive mentoring, but the two groups reported no significant differences in their sense of mastery or in their views about remaining in the profession.

Evaluation reports have noted that newly qualified teachers are satisfied with reflective discussions in mentoring, but at the same time, they believe that reflection sessions do not increase their mastery of classroom situations to any significant extent. Much mentoring is based on the new graduates’ self-reports, and the supervisors largely leave it to the graduates to set the agenda for the mentoring process, even though new teachers report that it is difficult for them to determine the content of the mentoring. Research has shown that mentoring programmes where responsibility is shifted to students or new employees do not always promote increased reflection (Rambøll., 2016; Skagen, 2010). The scope of supervision is, however, increasing, with graduates reporting that guidance as useful (Rambøll, 2020).

The 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) shows that only one in four teachers with five or fewer years of experience reported participating in an introductory programme as beginning teachers in school, and only one in six newly qualified teachers has the support of a mentor. The current regulations impose no obligation on school owners to provide mentoring to newly hired teachers; they also do not grant newly appointed teachers any right to mentoring. At the same time, the transition from student life to pursuing and adjusting to a teaching job is still perceived by many new graduates as demanding (Throndsen et al., 2019). The problem of relatively few newly qualified teachers receiving adequate follow-up has not yet been solved.

12 From Intentions to Realization

There is a widespread opinion among many participants in the public debate that Norwegian teacher education is not of sufficient quality. However, teacher education has struggled to be considered a good education as long as it has existed. The main points of criticism have included a lack of alignment between the theoretical knowledge provided in seminaries, universities and colleges and practical training in schools, due to the limited practical relevance of theoretical knowledge and the lack of internal connections. The frequent reforms have not addressed the challenges of education in any significant way. Norwegian education authorities have set bold and transformative goals for PLS teacher education: “A main aim of the strategy is to unite and mobilise everyone involved in teacher education” (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2018, 5). A central measure in the strategy is to establish partnerships between teacher education programmes and school owners in order to create teacher education schools. One goal is to integrate enhanced knowledge and research competency with inquiry-rich, school-based experiences to create a permanent professionally-oriented teaching force. Another aspect is the extension of teacher education for primary and lower secondary education to the 5-year integrated master’s level. This endeavour has secured good framework conditions, but some challenges are related to conditions where solutions are not easy to find, including the waning attractiveness and status of the teaching profession and insufficient funding (NOKUT, 2020).

Consideration of a sufficient number of trained teachers is important for politicians: In a June 2019 Storting debate, some representatives thought it urgent to take effective steps to ensure that Norway would have enough teachers in the future. They wanted to improve teacher education by fixing the number of teachers required for the future (Stortinget, 2019b). Labour representatives insisted that ‘a strengthening effort is needed for a better teacher education’, which included not going out of their way to request stronger state governance of the educational institutions. A majority of representatives and the incumbent government reject detailed regulations, pointing to ‘the continuous, ongoing work’, stating that ‘the sector takes responsibility and even continually strives for improvements and innovation in education’ (Nybø, 2019). The then Ministry of Education held meetings with representatives of universities and colleges regarding clear expectations and a partnership strategy between teacher education and schools: ‘Such a model allows for a closer link between what happens in campus teaching and what happens in partner schools, even beyond the mandatory practical periods’. As of this writing (May 2022), a new government rules. Only future research will reveal whether these expectations are being met and whether the policy will be changed.