In the near future a generation change in the teaching profession will be taking place: One third of all teachers in Europe are aged over 50 and many senior teachers are retiring as early as possible. Thereunto, a significant number of novice teachers leave their profession during their first years, due to various reasons, such as disciplinary problems, increased workloads, low incomes and excessive demands by both the schools and parents alike. It is estimated that by 2015, over a million primary and secondary education teachers will have to be recruited and trained. A deterioration of educational quality could arise out of these problems.
In an effort to tackle these difficulties at hand, the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission has launched the Grundtvig project “2AgePro” – Generational Change in the Teaching Profession” to establish models supporting novice teachers at the early stages of their careers and encouraging expert teachers to remain in the profession. The aim of 2AgePro is to create collaboration models for interaction between experienced and novice teachers in primary and secondary schools. In this project teacher interaction occurs through a purposeful set of meetings whereby teachers have the opportunity to develop their professional skills as well as to share their competence and knowledge with each other. By utilizing and widening the ideas of coaching and mentoring, the created models shall offer pedagogical, social and technical support to teachers and schools participating in the project.
Scientists from five educational institutions are working together, pooling knowledge and experience, to develop new cooperation scenarios for teachers from the following countries: Czech Republic (Charles University), Finland (University of Oulu, who is also the Consortium leader), Germany (Ludwig-Maximilians University), Netherlands (Utrecht University), Sweden (Umeå University)
