Teacher professional standards to support teacher quality and learning in Estonia

Abstract In the modern world, teachers are expected to be ‘learning professionals’ who constantly expand their knowledge and skills and share both practical and theoretical insights in a community of colleagues. Teacher professional competence‐based standards could be an instrument to support teachers' professional learning if they are integrated with broader assessment and evaluation frameworks and if their evaluation, professional development and career advancement are in line with the standards. In Estonia, teacher professional standards were first developed in 2005. Currently, they support initial teacher education, the evaluation of teacher competences and the design of continuous professional learning. They also allow teachers to progress to the senior teacher and master teacher qualification level. According to our findings, the standards are successfully used to design pre‐service education and award certificates at the end of the studies. However, they do not support building the teachers' career ladder and only in some schools do they support planning of professional learning. In this article, we give an overview of the changes in the professional standards of teachers in Estonia and analyse why they have not found the desired degree of use in teachers' career advancement and professional development in the school context and why they have not had a significant effect on teacher status in society.