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 2022/23, the number of students increased by more than 100%.

Entrances (at bachelor/diploma level) and students at universities of teacher education by branch of study, sex and nationality (category), 2022/23
  Entrances Students    
  Total Total % Female % Foreign
Pre-primary and primary 3 262 11 939 79.0 9.3
Lower secondary  654 4 933 52.8 10.5
Lower and upper secondary together  62  157 47.1 8.9
Upper secondary (baccalaurate schools)  482 1 135 47.0 17.9
Upper secondary (vocational/professional education)  381 1 103 49.0 10.8
General vocational and professional education   5  67 68.7 4.5
Speech therapy  88  313 92.3 11.2
Psychomotor education  28  197 92.4 11.2
Special education  0 2 766 86.4 10.8
Subject-specific didactics  0  410 74.6 8.3
General teacher education  0  392 78.3 15.6
Total 4 962 23 412 71.3 10.3
Source: FSO - SHIS-studex

In 2022/23, almost 23 500 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 10%.

We highly recommend checking the results published in the tables available under the heading "tables" beforehand.

Further information

Tables

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