Universities of teacher education

Created and integrated within the system of higher education institutions at the beginning of the 2000s, universities of teacher education (UTE) aim to train prospective teachers for primary and lower secondary levels and special needs education. Some of these UTE are integrated into a university of applied sciences. Part of the teaching training also takes place within universities and to a far lesser extent, at the universities of applied sciences.

Since their creation at the beginning of the 2000s, the universities of teacher education have seen considerable growth in student numbers for all branches of study. The numerous structural changes that have taken place since the first half of the 2000s make any comparison of branches at universities of teacher education before 2005/06 incoherent. Between then and 2023/24, the number of students increased by more than 120%.

Students at universities of teacher education by branch of study, sex and nationality (category), 2023/24
	Total	% Female	% Foreign
Pre-primary and primary	11 965	78.5	9.8
Lower secondary	5 071	53.0	11.2
Lower and upper secondary together	177	46.3	10.2
Upper secondary (baccalaurate schools)	1 100	44.5	17.4
Upper secondary (vocational/professional education)	1 099	50.2	10.6
General vocational and professional education	71	69.0	9.9
Speech therapy	354	94.4	11.0
Psychomotor education	231	93.1	15.2
Special education	2 912	86.2	10.3
Subject-specific didactics	363	77.4	9.4
General teacher education	311	77.5	14.5
Total	23 654	71.2	10.7

Source: FSO - SHIS-studex

In 2023/24, about 23 600 people studied at universities of teacher education. More them the half of these followed pre-primary and primary level teaching courses and 21% lower secondary level teaching courses. Women almost account for three quarters of students at universities of teacher education. The branches of study with the greatest number of women are pre-primary and primary level teaching (79%) and special needs education. In total, the percentage of foreign students is around 11%.

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