SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES OF TEACHER EDUCATION: THE CASE OF LITHUANIA

In recent years, teacher education model in Lithuania has been a topic of debates among governmental authorities, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports, teacher professional unions, students and teaching education professionals.

Responding to emerging need for young, motivated and professional teachers, Lithuania took steps towards shifting from specialized pedagogical education to comprehensive development of teaching skills. The paper presents the case of implementation of the new teacher education model that combines consecutive and parallel teacher education and concentration of pedagogy studies in country’s leading higher education institutions.

In this paper, we overview the main principles of the new teaching education model in Lithuania and present the practical steps of its implementation through teaching training centers. We discuss interim results of the new model by the example of Teacher Training Center at Vilnius University, Lithuania’s largest and highest-ranked higher education institution.