Workbook final

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KEY F EATURES (W ITH ADDITIONS FROM THE ZERO P ROJECT TEAM)
The Austrian Federal Framework Law for New Teacher Training (BGBl. I Nr. 124/2013), is to be classified as national
legally binding regulatory policy. Now, only elementary school teachers can be exclusively trained by teacher training
colleges; for the training of all other teachers there is an obligation to cooperate with universities at the master level.
The newly developed teacher training includes the following features:
 To receive public funding, all newly developed curricula for teacher training courses at teacher training colleges and
universities have to undergo the assessment procedure of the Quality Management Council and have to receive a
positive assessment.
 The new teacher training foresees an entrance exam for all teacher trainees (existed beforehand only at the teacher
training colleges) and an obligatory master’s degree. To become a teacher now, one undertakes therefore a four-
year Bachelor, a 1- or 2-year Master, plus a one-year mandatory internship (which can be combined with the
Master).
 In addition, the studies are now competence-oriented and the legally enshrined key competences include a diversity
and gender competence, which is to ensure that all teacher trainees are able to cope with diversity (e.g. social
status, gender, religion, sexual orientation, different abilities, etc.) and can adequately nurture the different
strengths of individuals. Diversity management skills (including diagnosis, guidance, learning, motor skills and
mobility, talent, cognition, gender, socio-emotional behavior, speech, German as second language and
interculturality) are taught to all trainees in the Bachelor degree, which also have additionally to offer courses,
which promote inclusive attitudes.
 To become a teacher, now every teacher trainee has to choose a specialization. In order to qualify themselves to
teach children and youth with special needs and to advice other teachers on inclusive education, graduates choose
the specialization in inclusive pedagogy with the focus on disability at Bachelor and at Master level, which replaces
the special needs education. In all teacher training Bachelor degrees, a focus on inclusive pedagogy has to be
offered: In a Bachelor for nursery, pre-school and primary school teachers, trainees should acquire more detailed
knowledge of the cross-categorical areas such as diagnosis, guidance, learning, motor skills and mobility, talent,
cognition, gender, socio-emotional behavior, speech, German as second language, etc. (60-80 ECTS); similarly,
trainees in a Bachelor for secondary school teachers (95 - 100 ECTS). A challenge still to be tackled will be to define
which competences should all trainees acquire and which ones trainees focusing in inclusive pedagogy. In all
teacher training Master programmes (90-120 ECTS), a focus on inclusive pedagogy has to be offered (30 - 60 ECTS):
There should be categorical specializations in Hearing, Visual, etc., as well as specializations, such as in Inclusive
school development, guidance and diagnosis, or Language diversity and interculturality.
 Furthermore, all teacher training colleges and universities should become inclusive and are to be based on an
inclusive concept, with adequate resources for support, accessibility and diversity.
 On the basis of the Law, a Quality Management Council (QSR) was established, which provides quality- and demand-
oriented, scientific support for the development of teacher training. Its six members are independent in the exercise