Along with the rise of cross-national educational tests such as TIMSS, PISA, and PIRLS, countries have been compelled to involve in a challenging international competition against each other to prove their educational achievements (Akiba & LeTendre, 2009). While policymakers have been enacting several reforms to improve schools and raise educational quality, it has been widely recognized that every single aspect of a school reform, first and foremost, depends on highly qualified teachers to be successful (Darling-Hammond, 2010), supported by the argument that teacher quality is a strong determinant of students’ learning outcomes (Berry, Hoke, & Hirsch, 2004; Betts, Zau, & Rice, 2003; Buddin & Zamarro, 2008; Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 2003; NCATE, 2006; OECD, 2005; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005).

Although there has been a great deal of interest in finding new education policies targeted to improve teacher quality (Akiba, LeTendre, & Scribner, 2007; Goldhaber, 2007), the most struggling problems in education systems have still been resulting from a lack of highly qualified teachers (OECD, 2005) as education systems confront a challenge in recruiting, preparing, and retaining them. In fact, while there have been many initiatives to address this quality teacher shortage problem, they have mostly been short-term remedies (Schleicher, 2012), which tended to emphasize teacher quantity over teacher quality and thereby, exacerbated the problem of underqualified teachers (OECD, 2005; Schleicher, 2012). Preparing high quality teachers is, indeed, a goal that requires to adopt a systems approach for the issue, which involves attracting, preparing, and supporting high quality teachers together (Darling-Hammond, 2010; OECD, 2005; Wenglinsky, 2000) as they are considered to be different but interconnected ways of improving teacher workforce (Goldhaber & Hansen, 2008). In so doing, a systems approach might contribute to higher teacher qualifications, lower teacher turnover or attrition rates, and less teacher shortages, as well as higher student achievement and greater success of school systems (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Darling-Hammond & Berry, 1999; OECD, 2005; Schleicher, 2012).

Building on these, this study aims to investigate the views of in-service teachers on the teacher education system in Turkey as well as their suggestions regarding an effective teacher education. In particular, the study seeks to answer the following research questions: 

1. What are the views of in-service teachers regarding the (a) pre-service teacher admission system, (b) teacher preparation, and (c) teacher appointment system in Turkey?
2. What are the suggestions of in-service teachers regarding an effective (a) pre-service teacher admission system, (b) teacher preparation, and (c) teacher appointment system?

The study addresses the European Commission’s call for quality teacher education as it offers implications of how teacher education systems could be improved. Along with the cross-national comparisons of student achievement (e.g., PISA, TALIS), the growing expectations of parents or other stakeholders for high quality teachers, and the need to reform the system of teacher education in the member states (European Commission, 2013), the key role of teachers and higher quality teacher education has been raised by the European Union (Caena, 2013) through international commitments (e.g., the Bologna process of Higher Education reform) and the development of Qualifications framework (European Commission, 2013) so as to create Europe of Knowledge and increase the competitiveness of the European Union, transform European societies into learning societies, and facilitate the process of European integration for economic welfare and social cohesion (Buchberger, Campos, Kallos, & Stephenson, 2000). Within this framework, the current study contributes to the landscape of teacher education as it considers the teacher education system as a whole and provides insights for an effective pre-service teacher admission, teacher preparation, and teacher appointment system. 

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