Initial Teacher Education and Teaching Readiness: The Case of Primary Education Prospective Teachers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.57125/FED.2025.12.13Keywords:
initial teacher education, teaching readiness, internship, students’ satisfactionAbstract
Initial teacher education plays a decisive role in preparing prospective teachers to meet the demands of contemporary school environments. However, previous research indicates that newly qualified teachers often feel insufficiently prepared for real classroom challenges. The present study examines primary education students’ sense of preparation and teaching readiness upon completing their studies, with particular emphasis on the contribution of their internship. A multi-method approach was adopted, including a quantitative survey with 103 students and semi-structured interviews with 16 participants from the Direction of Primary Education Teachers (PET), Department of Education and Social Work (DE&SW), University of Patras. The results showed that although students agree that the Study Programme offers courses of a high academic standard and that their internship helped them to connect theory with practice, they nevertheless believe that the courses taught at the University do not fully prepare them to enter the classroom. The study highlights the need to strengthen practice-oriented components, enhance mentoring, and better align initial teacher education with the actual demands of school reality. These results can inform improvements in curriculum design and contribute to the ongoing scientific debate on teaching readiness in initial teacher education.
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