Educational systems, including teacher education as a key component thereof, face multiple challenges in many European countries. Poland is no exception and struggles with hardships that are the result of both global processes, i.e. demographic changes, but also of specific, national/local realities. Among the most common pressing issues are: the aging of the teaching professionals, teacher shortages, burnout, dropout from the profession, lack of professional development opportunities (De Witte et al. 2023; OECD, 2024). Moreover, compared to other European countries, Polish teachers are among the most poorly remunerated (OECD 2024; Eurydice 2024), and their profession suffers from a feeling of decline in the social prestige (Onyefulu et al., 2023).

In relation to teachers' education, it is noticeable that the number of those choosing teacher training programs at HEIs is declining (Suchecka, 2024), while some university students experience overload as teacher preparatory courses might be offered as optional elements of the study program, with ECTS credits for their completion excluded from those required for graduation (Janiak-Jasińska, 2023).

Education policy in Poland after 1989, the fall of the communism, has been marked by a huge number of changes, carried out, but also attempts to reform made and aborted. As a result, all participants in the education field, including teachers, lack stability, accompanied by a sense of confusion and insecurity. 

In the past 36 years, Poland has had 22 education ministers, averaging about 1.5 years per minister. The ministry's name and responsibilities have changed seven times (Gov.pl, b.d.). Additionally, the education system is heavily over-regulated, posing challenges for teachers and universities alike.

This is accompanied by the appropriation of education as an area for gaining votes by successive ruling parties. Often by taking actions of a populist nature, superficial, substitute topics (e.g., the prohibition of homework, regulated from above by a ministerial decision). Politicians are not willing to make decisions at the level of above-party divisions and do not implement long-term activities whose effects are not visible within one election cycle (Kennedy, 2024). It can be noted, following Biesta (2021), that policy thus becomes “part of the problem” instead of “part of the solution”.

At the same time, due to Poland's opening to the free market economy and the educational boom of the 1990s, teacher education became heavily commercialized. Given the relatively low cost, modest infrastructure requisites, no entry requirements for candidates and relatively non-demanding academic curriculum, teacher education programs began to be offered by practically all types of HEIs, and were increasingly seized by the booming private school market (Latoch-Zielińska, 2023).

The response to fears of massification and a decline in the quality of teacher education was to be the standards for teacher preparation education introduced in 2019 by a Regulation of the Minister of Science and Higher Education (Dz.U. 2019 poz. 1450). The intention was to leave the authority to educate teachers only to those HEIs that conduct research in the field of teacher education and have at least a scientific category of B in the discipline to which the field of study is assigned (Dz.U. 2018 poz. 1668; Janiak-Jasińska, 2023).

However, we argue that the introduced standards, instead of making teacher education programs more appealing and attractive for the candidates, have had the opposite effect, as they were based on inadequate problematization(s) of the teacher education that do not correspond to the current situation of the educational system and the challenges it faces.

These issues are not unique to Poland; many European countries face similar challenges in their initial teacher education provisions. Addressing these problems requires a coordinated international effort to share best practices and develop effective, context-sensitive solutions.

To analyze the standards of initial teacher education and its implications, the model of poststructural policy analysis, called also What is the problem represented to be?, developed by Carol Bacchi (2012a; 2012b) is used. She proposes the critical study of policies as the discovery of problematization of “problems” based on the analysis of interventions made in policy-making. The concept of problematization refers to the thought of Paulo Freire, where it denotes a strategy of developing a critical consciousness that questions and exposes “truths” previously considered indisputable. At the same time, problematization refers to a method of analysis in which one does not seek the correct answer, but examines how it is constructed, analyzed, classified and regulated. In other words, one seeks answers to the question of how it happens that certain problems become “problems” under certain conditions and historical moments, and how they become the subject of political action. The starting point for post-structural policy analysis is a critical examination of the proposals for specific policy measures contained in recommendations, positions, statements, official documents as well as legislation. According to Bacchi, if one wants to critically analyze public policy in a given area, the first step should be to find proposals for solving a given “problem.” How a proposal for change is perceived and constructed tells us directly what is and how it is problematized as a “problem,” that is, it reveals the representation of the problem (Bacchi 2012a). The subject of our critical analysis includes both the standards for teacher education and the related legal regulations, as well as selected teacher education programs at higher education institutions. We then confront them with public and academic discourse regarding the reasoning behind and consequences of the implemented solutions. Finally, we will conduct a comparative analysis of Poland's teacher education standards against the discourse surrounding the standardization of teacher education in other European countries. This post-structural critical analysis will help identify different problematizations of the teacher education as a political issue and varied policy responses.

Teacher education standards are crucial benchmarks for ensuring the quality of teachers. We argue that the standards analyzed are misleadingly problematized and ineffective in addressing key challenges in the profession. The Ministry (MNiSW, 2019) justified the standards by the necessity of ‘ensuring high quality education’ and optimal ‘preparation of students for the teaching profession,’ with emphasis on practical training and addressing inclusion. However, it does not clarify what ‘high quality’ means or the proposed objectives. The regulation (Dz. U., 2019 poz. 1450) fails to address needs assessment and scientific evidence justifying the proposed solutions. The standards assume the need to standardize and increase future teacher requirements, lengthening education programs and granting qualifications only to MA graduates. This assumes previous teachers were not “sufficiently” educated, necessitating uniform, imposed vision of teacher education. However, prolonging education and preventing BA graduates from entering the job market contradicts the Polish school system's needs, such as staff shortages and aging professionals. This also makes the teacher path less attractive compared to shorter programs. The overly prescriptive and rigid standards leave little room for the unique needs of different institutions, local circumstances, and changing conditions. These ‘one size fits all’ standards stifle innovation and reduce programs to ‘template’ replicas of ministerial provisions. At a meta-level, the standards reflect a wider social phenomenon of the lack of trust between citizens and institutions (OECD, 2022). There is no dialogue between various stakeholders, and the voices of those directly involved in teaching are underrepresented in policymaking. Legal changes are not based on informed evidence and research. These findings highlight the importance of addressing teacher education standards not only in Poland but also in a broader European and international context. Ensuring more context-sensitive teacher education policies can significantly improve educational outcomes across various countries.

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