Many school effectiveness studies stressed the importance of good and appropriate teacher education in obtaining a general and specific educational goals in a contemporary school. Teaching is a complex and demanding set of activities where adequate preparation play a role of high importance. Some research has shown that one of particular effective way to increase educational quality is to scrutinize process of teacher recruitment, and to develop the good program for teacher education and formation. (Eurydice, 2004).

​The question of importance is how teachers-in-serviceperceive their training and how they see own professional formation. In our previous research (Baric & Burusic, 2014) we found two general factors as especially important in explaining the current quality of Catholic religious education in Croatian primary public school. We named them as the ‘quality of teacher competences’ and the ‘quality of teaching practice’. The teachers who are in-service find the professional competencies of the teachers as a characteristic of the great importance where they relate quality of teacher competences to professional education program quite directly to university program for teacher’s education.

​Musset (2010) gave a good overview of the current practices in OECD countries about the issue of the initial teacher education and gave a sound literature review on potential effects on the quality of teacher education. On the European level there are some guidelines and policy documents about a theme of initial teacher education where European Commission prepared documents with intention ‘to assist countries in improving school education by advancingpolicy development through mutual learning and the identification of good practices’ (European Commission, 2015).

And while these documents generally deals with common subjects in the school curriculum and teachers who teach these subjects, the question of religious education remains somewhat isolated and interesting for consideration. Catholic religious education in Croatia is an elective school subject in the public school curriculum, and students can choose whether they will attend it at the beginning of the school year. Some studies indicate that around 87% of primary and 80% of secondary school students take the course every school year (Razum, 2009).

The present study focused on Catholic religious education teachers in the public schools and their opinions about their initial education. Initial education of religious teachers includes various dimensions of their formation. They are required primarily high-quality professional and scientific competence that includes competence in the field of theological and biblical sciences and in the context of other humanities and social sciences. In addition they are required psychological-pedagogical, methodical and didactic qualifications as well. 

The main aim of the present study is to examine how the religious education teachers who are in-service perceive their initial formation and how they perceive importance of different part of curriculum for professional education of religious education teachers.

Barić, D., & Burušić, J. (2015). Quality of religious education in Croatia assessed from teachers’ perspective. British Journal of Religious Education, 37 (3), 293-310. Darling-Hammond, L. (2012). Powerful teacher education: Lessons from exemplary programmes. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass. EURYDICE (2003). The teaching profession in Europe: Profile, trends and concerns. Key topics in education in Europe. Volume 3. Brussels: European Commission. European Commission. ET2020 Working Group on Schools Policy. (2015). Shaping career-long perspectives on teaching: a guide on policies to improve initial teacher education. Hackett C. (2009). What is the best and most special about teaching Religious Education? Journal of Religious Education, 57 (1), 14-24. Musset, P. (2010). Initial Teacher Education and ContinuingTraining Policies in a Comparative Perspective: Current Practices in OECD Countries and a Literature Review on Potential Effects”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 48, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5kmbphh7s47h-en. Razum, R. (2009). Vjeronauk između tradicije i znakova vremena: suvremeni izazovi za religijskopedagošku i katehetsku teoriju i praksu [Religions education between tradition and signs of the times. Challenges for religious pedagogical and catechetical theory and practice]. Zagreb: Glas Koncila.