The paper explores the shaping and reshaping of the curriculum of teacher education with a special focus on completion as an important aspect of the study course. It discusses the educational impact of worldwide expectations for new certification programs and questions how teacher education is reordered toward a transnational model which highlights standardized assessment forms over content-based curricula. Assessment is a topic on European policy agendas, and there seems to be general ideas about how assessment and evidence-based policies will change teacher qualifications worldwide. International assessment reports enforce state governments to renew their own policies for the pre-service and in-service education of teachers, profiling a state of emergency with respect to attaining goals of recruitment and retention (OECD 2005). This is accompanied by public expectations for a renewed professionalism in the field (Westbury et al. 2005). Yet, state governments are still in a position of power to make decisions in the field of education by forming curriculum decisions. Although this is gravitating toward a mix of models, teacher education is formed through national policy. This leads to differences in profiling curriculum content as well as the completion aspect of the study course. Following questions will be discussed: 1.In what way are teacher education programs across Europe adjusted to assessment and certification? 2 Which institutional differences exists between forms of curriculum control? The four-field model of Hopmann distinguishes four curriculum forms and helps provide distinctions about what constitutes the capacities of different models in teacher education, and moreover, how these models relate to the order, the sequence and decisions about completion within a study course, which means the curriculum (Hopmann 1998a). Since this model is presented as an ideal type, it forecasts distinctions to be discussed in curriculum making generally, also suggesting different models to be discussed in the field of teacher education..

The methodological orientation is comparative-historical and aims to explore how current scientific discourse reorder curriculum policies across countries (Drori et al. 2003). It also aims as clarifying systematic differences between forms of curriculum control (Dimmock 2007). The paper is based on documentary research which builds on policy documents, official records, national case-descriptions and international reports on teacher education. It aims to explore differences in levels of interpretation, also reflecting scientific arguments formulated in handbook- and journal articles (Fitzgerald 2007). Through this form of documentary analysis the strength and limits of scientific reasoning can be discerned.

The study has identified a number of reasons for reordering teacher education in light of international assessment, however not for replacing traditional forms of curriculum control. It provides for categories which distinguish between forms of authorizing teachers in Europe (Sivesind 2008). A possible consequence of new assessment systems is the abolishment of teacher education as an institution (Terhart 2003). However, this is not verified through contemporary studies and therefore up to the government and also the professional institutions to decide upon.