This report deals with part 1 of the work commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Research on the current status of teacher education kindergartens and schools in Norway. In addition to a description of how teacher education kindergartens and schools are organised and regulated, a literature review of international and Nordic research on educational partnerships is presented, and a selection of prototypes illustrate how partnerships can be organised.
Teacher education kindergartens and schools will lead to quality improvements in teacher education through new forms of cooperation and participation, and the Council believes this improvement will extend beyond cooperation on practical training/study. This knowledge base shows that the work on teacher education kindergartens and schools is a field with considerable variation and intense development. In order to safeguard the breadth of variation in teacher education partnerships, the Council has chosen a broad approach that embraces a diverse range of partnerships within teacher education kindergartens and schools.
The current statutory and regulatory framework does not specifically address partnerships between teacher education institutions and kindergartens and schools or their owners. The only aspect of cooperation that is covered in the regulations for the individual teacher education programmes and in the Kindergarten and Education Act is linked to the practice element in the teacher education programmes.
Academic literature reviews of actual partnership structures, collaborative content and how partnerships are operationalised are limited. The reviews that do exist show that research into partnerships rarely studies the partnerships themselves, but typically examines specific themes within teacher education, professional development, research-practice partnerships, development of new arenas for cooperation and school takeovers.
There is a considerable amount of cooperation at a local level between teacher education programmes and owners, where the owners are also active participants and play a significant role in setting the agenda. The survey conducted by the Council shows that most teacher education institutions have now established partnerships with schools. A key finding is that the types and areas of cooperation in the partnerships vary, and that the practice training/study is a particularly important arena for cooperation between employees in teacher education and in schools and kindergartens. The survey also shows that the various cooperation arenas and activities often appear to be integrated. It can therefore be difficult to draw clear boundaries between, for example, practice and other cooperation activities in the partnerships. Most partnerships entail R&D efforts and competence development. Because the core tasks of kindergartens, schools and teacher education programmes differ and the partnerships are often initiated by and the responsibility of the teacher education institution, kindergartens and schools run the risk of becoming recipients rather than participants in the partnerships. One of the main challenges described in the literature and in the survey is how equality and balance can be achieved between the partners.
The literature and the Council’s survey have provided us with current and more comprehensive information about the status of teacher education partnerships in Norway, but how the partnerships work requires a closer look. The Council will therefore present some prototypes of partnerships that serve to illustrate the areas not covered in the research literature or the survey. The prototypes are selected based on how they are organised, their area of focus, and the fact that they represent partnerships in different phases. In addition, they represent different types of teacher education programmes, such as vocational teacher programmes, kindergarten teacher education and primary and lower secondary teacher education.
One question in the continuing process is whether the perspectives of the field of practice and of the owners are well enough provided for in the current partnership structures. Another issue relates to how the balance and tension between the academic knowledge and the knowledge represented by the field of practice impact on the partnerships. The knowledge base provides an informed foundation for asking more precise questions about the work on partnerships in teacher education. It also helps highlight factors that appear to safeguard robust partnerships and identifies important challenges that the Council will address in parts 2 and 3 of the work.