**Acknowledgements**

In the Finnish educational context, external demands are not visible in everyday school practice to guide teachers' work, including their assessment practices. This atmosphere supports teachers in developing school environments and teaching collaboratively. Competition and rankings hardly exist in Finnish education—the educational context supports collaboration, networking and partnerships. Finnish teacher education aims to support student teachers to learn how to collaborate, as well as how to plan and assess teaching and students' learning outcomes. However, certain challenges face the development of collaboration and broader

One global trend has been consequential accountability systems for schools. Success or failure of schools and their teachers is often determined by standardised tests and external evaluations that devote attention to limited aspects of schooling. Again, in Finnish primary and lower secondary schools another direction has been chosen: trust based on the professionalism of teachers. An important pre-condition for trust is the high quality of teacher education and a broadly supported overall strategy. A culture of trust within the education system values teachers' and headmasters' professionalism in judging what is best for students and in reporting on the progress of their learning. While heavy testing and inspection do not characterise the Finnish system, school satisfaction is not high among students. Therefore, during initial teacher education, student teachers should learn how to take full benefit of the potentials inherent in the non-consequential accountability system in Finland. There is space for increasing co-planning, project work and encouraging and motivating

To conclude, the Finnish approach to teacher professionalism and effectiveness is the 'input approach', according to which a professional teacher should have a versatile knowledge base and competence for networking, developing the school culture and life-long-learning. The construction of this knowledge base begins during Finnish teachers' initial teacher education. This education supports Finnish teachers' strong autonomy in curriculum design and in choosing instructional strategies and approaches to assessment. This autonomy is also supported through Master's-level teacher education, which supports pedagogical thinking and autonomous decision-making. Moreover, autonomy is supported through the cultural respect accorded to the teachers. Third, Finnish education policy offers a supportive environ-

The influence of the new *Development Programme for Teachers Pre- and In-service Education* and implementation of the development projects is too early to evaluate. The development projects have been working only half-year when this chapter has been written. However, based on the meetings of the forum and directors of the development projects, the Finnish teacher educators are eager to make progress in teacher education. All 32 development projects have started and they are having nationwide connections and meetings. There have been two meetings between November 2017 and February 2018. Altogether four national meetings are scheduled for the rest of the year 2018. The impact of the *Development Programme for Teachers Pre- and In-service Education* will be evaluated in the end of year 2018 by the forum itself and

by external evaluators, nominated by the Finnish national quality office.

networking skills through teacher education programmes.

18 Contemporary Pedagogies in Teacher Education and Development

forms of assessment.

ment for teachers in their autonomous roles.

This material is based upon work supported by the Finnish Academy (No. 298323 and 294228). The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the funding agency. The authors acknowledge Finnish Academy.
