Abstract

The importance of education in establishing the futures of the nations‟ and the importance of teachers in establishing the education cannot be denied. Teacher is the most important component of learning and instruction. A qualified process of learning and instruction can be established by the qualified teachers. Accordingly, teacher education is becoming more of an issue. It has been known that the most important and dynamic element determining the quality of education is teacher. In fact, there is support from many researches for the view that teacher plays a decisive role in determining students‟ learning outcomes. The role of teacher for the quality of education and students‟ success emerge from teacher education programmes.
This study has been conducted using descriptive research design. Perspective comparative approach has been used. In this article, it has been aimed to evaluate comparatively the teacher education programmes of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea that have high performance in PISA 2012 and 2011 TIMMS. In addition, these countries are have strong economical power in Asia. The fact that the related countries have leapt forward in education recently has brought the teacher education systems of these countries an issue of wonder. While collecting the data, thesis, books, journals, electronic resources and articles about the teacher training programmes in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea are referred. The data attained in this study is evaluated by using descriptive analysis approach in terms of the criteria that is determined in accordance with the aim of this study. These countries have been analyzed in terms of teacher education insititues, the criteria to select prospective teachers to teacher training institutions, the assignment to teaching professional training and teachers‟ economic and social position. As a result of the analyses, it has been determined that teachers are educated in different institutes under the different names and in the process of selecting prospective teachers to education faculties, there are writing essay, aptitude, attitude, personality tests and individual interview as well as national exams. In pre-service education there is a balance with theory and practice, and also there is intense practice training. In terms of professional training, it has been determined that teachers undergo a heavy professional training that is mostly based on practice and professional training courses have an important role in teachers‟ salary and promotion. Besides, in these countries, teachers‟ socio-economic position is higher than teachers in OECD countries, and therefore teacher profession has more attraction than other professions.