This paper will report on the initial findings of the multi-country study on professional standards for teachers which has been conducted in Russia. The paper will provide an important benchmark for teachers’ understandings of the role and purpose of professional standards, ahead of their universal adoption in the Russian Federation in 2017. The main findings of this paper are the new patterns of improving the professional skills of teaching staff in educational institutions in Russia in the context of the ‘Teacher Professional Standard” which was passed by the legislature in 2013 and will be implemented from 2017. The aim of the ‘Teacher Professional Standard’ is to establish uniform requirements for the content and quality of vocational educational activities, to assess the level of qualification of teachers in employment and certification for career planning; the formation of job descriptions and development of federal state educational standards of teacher education. The problems of teacher education are prioritized in educational policy in Russia. In the context of educational development, when openness, self-organization, self-determination and self-development are becoming its essential characteristics, the teacher as an integral element of the system is subjected to significant systematic changes. Not reactive (passive and adaptive), but active (active-adaptive) or subject-transforming behavior becomes effective professional behavior of the teacher. Alongside this, there might be a lack of ready-made models of educational practice for implementations of new goals; professional and personal characteristics of teachers capable to successfully operate in the conditions of a particular model of education have not been specified yet and their development has not been determined at the technological level. This paper will articulate some of these challenges and consider how the adoption and implementation of professional standards in other education systems might provide important signposts for Russia ahead of the adoption of the ‘Teacher Professional Standard’ in 2017.

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