In 2008, as part of a shared objective of improving the quality of initial teacher education (ITE), the Universities of Applied Sciences (HBO) founded an organisation called ‘10voordeleraar’ (An A for the Teacher). Within 10voordeleraar, all Dutch teacher education institutions work together in order to guarantee the level of achievement of graduate student teachers. In order to do so, three national instruments are developed and implemented: knowledge bases, knowledge exams and peer review.
Teacher educators in the Netherlands benefit from countless national partnerships which contribute to their level of education and professional development. These partnerships offer teacher educators opportunities to discuss subject matters with peers and thus further their own expertise. The control over the three aforementioned national instruments lies therefore with all the teacher educators from the various institutions and their national networks. These national networks include teachers from the field, scientists and other experts and also board of directors. The external quality assurance is organized by an independent board.
The process to determine the required level of achievement of a graduate student teacher involves defining the level of knowledge. This level creates the knowledge bases which are defined as “the subject-specific and subject-didactic knowledge and (subject-specific) skills that a starting teacher must master”. Using a cross-institutional peer review system, teacher educators participate in critical discussions on the implementation and achievement of the knowledge base in their own teaching and testing programs. Finally, the national knowledge exams provide evidence that the individual student teachers possess the pre-determined and required body of knowledge.