The Role of Early Childhood Teachers in Finnish Policy Documents-Training Teachers for the Future?

Abstract

During the last few years all steering documents in Finland, on the field of early childhood education, have been renewed. This have had its effects on the practices on the field, but also on the teacher education. In this paper we explore, with the help of content analysis, three different policy documents that are steering the quality of teacher education in Finland. We examine the role that teachers are given in these documents from three categories. These categories are defined by the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland and they describe the objectives for both pre-service and in-service training. As our theoretical frame we describe current policies and practice within the field of ECEC. We point out the responsibilities of different stakeholders and describe the structure of the Finnish early education system with qualification requirements. According to the results, recent policy documents highlight the current knowledge and role of teacher’s but point out only occasionally towards needed future competencies.