Preparing student teachers for curriculum-making

A dominant feature in the Nordic countries during the 1980s and the 1990s has been the process of decentralization and deregulation in different societal sectors. Within the educational sector this change has affected the steering system by offering the local schools new possibilities of acting autonomously. The aim of the reforms is radical because it implies far-reaching implications for teachers' daily work and for the preservice and in-service education of teachers. The focal point of the reform ambition is a school-based curriculum. From the perspective of teacher education, the new situation raises questions about the responsibility for and manner of preparing student teachers for remarkable changes in the educational system. This paper highlights characteristic features of the ongoing process of change with a focus on possible measures to be taken in teacher education in order to face a reform which might result in a restructuring of the profession. T he illustration of the move from a centralized to a decentralized curriculum-making system is a recent curricular reform (1994) in Finland.