ABSTRACT
There is widespread agreement that initial teacher education cannot provide prospective teachers with all the knowledge, skills and understanding required to handle various tasks and to meet the strong demands of educational reform and social change throughout their professional career (AGQTP, 2008; Barber and Mourshed, 2007). Becoming a teacher is increasingly acknowledged to be a developmental, gradual process, which means that ‘teacher education must be seen as a career-long process placed within the context of lifelong learning’ (OECD, 2005: 44). The European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE, 2008) stresses that the development of new skills, initiatives, teaching methods and ways of working require practice, feedback and training in situ as well as time available outside the classroom.
