(3) Qualifications

Professional foundation
The bachelor’s programme for teaching qualification at the primary level at the PH NÖ provides practical and scientifically sound prerequisites that prepare, enable, and support professionally oriented pedagogical action as well as the responsible enjoyment of it.

Age-appropriateness
The study programme is primarily, but not exclusively, oriented towards the structure of the Austrian school forms but in any case towards the age up to the 4th grade of the target groups as children and pupils in variable forms of all-day care. This results in different professional requirements for the professional activity as a classroom teacher and as a subject teacher. This is because primary schools increasingly need teachers who no longer operate holistically but rather who teach primarily in a subject-oriented manner. (This curriculum takes this into account by forming focal points but also aims to selectively strengthen the specific subject qualifications of the students so that they can later also and increasingly be employed in their schools in a subject-specific manner)

Polyvalence
Professionalism in primary level education therefore requires polyvalence in variable forms of combination and preference of subject-scientific, subject-didactic, educational, and educationally responsible study components as well as the final combinability of these. In line with the Bologna Declaration, the BA degree, as an intermediate stage to becoming a teacher, focuses on the ability to work. Accordingly, polyvalence means a coordinated degree of combinability of subject-specific with pedagogical professionalism. This has an effect on variable MA prioritisations after the BA study programme has been completed. These should have the effect that each teacher at the primary level not only sees themselves as a generalist but rather also as a specialist for a area of studies defined by them and documented by study achievements.

Employability
It is the aim and content of primary level education: The regular study programme is structured in such a variable way that demand-oriented employability, which is therefore subject to possible changes, is guaranteed insofar as graduates are able to recognise their needs, abilities, and skills and to critically align their performance and willingness to the respective employment offers. Choice of focus in the study programme increases employability and professional flexibility.

Social function
Following Section 2 School Organisation Act, educators (not least in their function as role models) have to responsibly fulfil a variety of tasks in a changing society in order to be cooperative and innovative in the context of the school community. This requires a broad horizon in order to be able to engage in an in-depth discussion of societal (religious, ethical, cultural, social, political, historical, economic, media, ecological) challenges and to deal responsibly with the diversity of interaction within a freedom-conscious society.

European dimension
The European Community looks back on more than half a century of peaceful and prosperous years as a great social peace project. For this, European civil society needs Europeans who are equipped with knowledge to protect themselves from the demagogues vis-à-vis the European integration task and to actively support Europe as a settlement. School activities provide an essential basis for experiencing, understanding, and trying out global cooperation in the form of a peaceful reconciliation of interests. Teachers are the school’s representatives in order to contribute to European awareness in all areas of learning.

Civic engagement and citizenship education
European political education as civic education has become an indispensable task of schools as learning for democracy and civil society in order to be able to cope with specific new social challenges (ethics, gender mainstreaming, immigration problems, racism, intolerance, egoism, globalisation, loss of culture). It is precisely here that the teaching and practice of learning activities and the promotion of self-determination ensure a departure from the mere reception of content.

Inclusion
The appreciation and recognition of diversity in education and training is demanded as an explicit and implicit qualification feature. This must not be seen as an ideological model but rather must focus on the optimising learning development of each individual. Inclusive pedagogy is given priority throughout the educational pathway.

Skill orientation
Teaching–learning research assumes that skills cannot be taught. Skills are acquired, developed, and organised by the students themselves within the framework of cumulative learning processes, whereby cognitive, motivational, volitional, and social abilities and creativity play a central role in the processes of the learners. Skill-oriented study programme supports this acquisition and strengthens the responsibility of learners for their own learning processes. It aims to improve self-direction as a basis for lifelong learning. The choice of learning opportunities, learning methods, and learning content opens up learning and development spaces that enable the connection of knowledge, ability, will, and attitude. Learning processes become personality-effective when the engagement with the (learning) object takes place in individual and collaborative learning settings.

Professional awareness
It is based on knowledge and networked knowledge as well as on the variety of abilities to actively guide the young people up to the 4th grade in a protective and supportive way and to guide their personal responsibility in an age-appropriate way. This gives rise to specific tasks of transition research in the context of transition pedagogy. This means being a personal role model, promoting Socratic curiosity, imparting knowledge, developing skills, pointing out and initiating ways of acquiring knowledge independently, promoting potential and talents individually, facilitating individual learning paths, communicating cultural identity, promoting internationality, supporting logical thinking and problem-solving ability, proactively assuming responsibility for education and upbringing, not avoiding social problems, working in a team-oriented manner, dealing with social changes, and understanding the development of one’s own pedagogical activity as a professional mission.