Danish Minister for Education Bertel Haarder met with his European peers on Thursday the 26th of November. Together they were to agree on a set of conclusions with the aim of encouraging the member states and the European Commission to support mobility among teachers and student teachers.

Increased mobility and support for newly qualified teachers

Among other things, the Ministers for Education encourage:

• Support for more teachers, school leaders and student teachers in cross-national mobility arrangements, partnerships and projects under the EU’s programmes, especially Lifelong Learning
• Support for the promotion of possibilities associated with exchange and mobility arrangements on national and international levels.

Newly qualified teachers are also among the focal areas of the conclusions. They must to a larger extent have support and guidance offered to them, so the amount of new teachers leaving their job is brought down. This can happen for instance through structured support programs for all newly qualified teachers and teachers returning to teaching.

Inspiration for internationalization strategy

The Danish Ministry of Education is currently mapping out an internationalization strategy for the higher education programmes under the ministry’s area of responsibility. The EU conclusions are meant to inspire this process. One of the main areas of the strategy is to motivate more young people to undertake a study or internship period abroad.

“Opportunities to go abroad make the teacher education more attractive. The students should have the chance to learn languages in the countries speaking the languages as part of everyday life.

Furthermore, teachers with good experiences from spells abroad can act as role models and motivate young people to consider a study period abroad as well. I am therefore pleased that I together with my colleagues from the other 26 EU member states today have agreed to put focus on mobility opportunities for teachers and student teachers,” said Bertel Haarder.