All societies prioritize good education, and the single most important element in the quality of education is the teacher (Cochran-Smith, Zeichner, 2005). The teaching force can be improved in many ways, by better professional training, through higher selection standards, stronger retention of good candidates and beginner teachers, but also by better Initial Teacher Education (ITE) (Tinoca et al, 2013). Quality of Higher Education is assessed by multiple agencies for different stakeholders and for different purposes. Prospective students, parents and business people along with government decision makers want easy to use and simplified tools, and so rankings provide just that. Even though most ranking indicators are superficial quantitative data, and they only rank 5% of institutions, they are very popular (Rauhvargers, 2011). For certain stakeholders, like students and faculty, SERVQUAL and similar constructs measure service quality based on their satisfaction, established on data collected through surveys (Abidin, 2015). Despite the fact that satisfaction does not directly correspond to quality, these instruments are useful for the institutions. National agencies on the other hand built quality standards and guidelines (Eurydice, 2006), and for unique programs like ITE, there are complex Quality Indicators and Control Instruments created. A perfect example is the Quality Indicators for Teacher Education developed by the responsible agencies of India and Canada with 6 key areas, 25 quality areas and 75 indicators and a precise system how to evaluate an ITE in all indicators and how to summarize the results (Menon et al, 2007). Critics to such an evaluation points out, that all data is provided by the institution, and hence it is never clear how objective it can be. This research presents an alternative framework for ITE assessment through observed program execution. Through literature review, best practices, general principles and philosophies are collected that are proven to help pre-service teachers in becoming the best teachers they can be. Research results of individual practices and meta-researches are both considered. Interviews, survey, and focus groups are conducted with pre-service teachers learning to become high school math and English teachers in one university in Lisbon, Portugal. Findings show the difference between the practices proposed by the scientific community and the observed reality of the ITE program by the students. This alternative view into the quality of one program offers consequences for the institution, policy makers and further research.

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