The Teacher Educator: A neglected factor in the contemporary debate on teacher education.

In dit hoofdstuk van het TEPE handbook 2010 'Advancing Quality Cultures for Teacher Education in Europe : Tensions and Opportunities' doen Marco Snoek, Anja Swennen (VU) en Marcel van der Klink (OU) verslag van een analyse van de beleidsaandacht voor het beroep van lerarenopleider in Europese onderwijsdiscussies. "Recent studies have identified that the teacher is the most important factor influencing the quality of education. Following this line of reasoning, it is likely to assume that the teacher educator is the most important factor influencing the quality of teacher education. Although many research studies and policy documents attempt to identify the qualities of teachers, only a few publications address the quality of teacher educators. This paper examines the contemporary European policy debate on the quality and status of teacher educators. Two issues will be addressed. Firstly, to what extent is teacher educator regarded as a profession? Secondly, what actions and measures are proposed to maintain or increase the quality and status of the teacher educator profession? Based on literature on professions and professionalism, a framework has been developed to guide our examination of European policy documents on teacher education to identify to what extent these documents express notions of teacher educators as professionals.