The Finnish science education context is challenging for teachers in ways described above.
For this reason elementary and secondary teachers are educated on masters-level
programmes at universities. In fact, there has been a 30-year tradition of educating
elementary teachers (grades 1–6) and more than a 100-year tradition of educating
secondary teachers (grades 7–12) on masters-level programmes. Elementary teachers
typically teach all the subjects in an elementary school, whereas secondary teachers
typically teach two subjects in lower and upper secondary schools (Jakku-Sihvonen and
Niemi, 2006). Primary teachers are educated at the Department of Teacher Education.
Secondary teacher education is organised in a cooperation between the department of the
specific discipline and the Department of Teacher Education