Does the New Kindergarten Teacher Education Program in Norway Provide Good Conditions for Professional Kindergarten Teachers?

Abstract

This partly descriptive, partly critically reflective, argumentative article analyses the Norwegian kindergarten teacher education program through the three concepts that are mentioned in its national guidelines: research-based, profession-oriented, and practice-related education. An inseparable correlation between these at the level of higher educational institutions is a condition for the development of professionalism and competences to act that are, again, a condition for exercising professional knowledge in practice in kindergartens. A question that is posed continually in this chapter is how the various aspects of profession-oriented, research-based, and practice-related kindergarten teacher education can become conditions for educating professional kindergarten teachers. The conclusions address both the institutional and national levels at which certain improvements can be implemented to strengthen the professional growth of kindergarten teachers and, thereby, kindergarten quality.