The education and training of future teachers is one of the pressing social challenges for many nations, in Europe and the world. The teaching profession represents a societal vanguard, drawing on digital knowledge and bearing the responsibility for a real ecological transition. With about 20,000 students within EUniWell aspiring to the teaching profession, we will position EUniWell as a worldwide leader in teacher education to meet the need for excellent training in an unprecedentedly complex, digitised, diverse, mobile, multicultural, and multilingual Europe.

Teacher Education Arena

Within EUniWell, the Teacher Education Arena is working with the aim of shaping and supporting the education and training of future European teachers. The main focus of this arena is to promote European student teachers and teacher identity by defining a common standard framework as the baseline for individual learning outcomes for European teacher education, leading to a transversal curriculum and the introduction of an international certificate.

The group is currently working on analysing the “basic” professional standards recognised by the partner countries and adding new standards according to key values of EUniWell, such as sustainability, well-being, inclusion and healthcare. 

Schools are of course recognised as fundamental stakeholders in the development of teacher training courses. They can support some of the concrete actions of the project, for example, promoting the international mobility of pre-service teachers within the European University Network through the piloting and subsequent implementation of internships in European schools within the European University Network. Internships can help to better connect theory and practice with regard to real world challenges in schools and society and to develop a common vision for a more hybrid teacher education where teaching and learning merge.

Opportunities for future teachers

The Teacher Education Arena was conceived as a place to promote cooperation between schools, local communities and universities. The objectives of this network are: 

• To design and develop an integrated professional training system for future teachers that also includes mobility to promote a fully European perspective.
• To draw attention to some of the key concepts of EUniWell such as well-being, sustainability, inclusion and governance in the school system.
• To promote innovation in the various European education systems, starting from the connection between theory and practice, to respond to real-world challenges across schools and society.