The Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council implemented a national evaluation of teacher education between 1998 and 1999 the impact of which was monitored by arranging a follow-up seminar. In connection with the evaluation, the universities produced self-evaluation material that has been utilised in research.

The purpose of this research was to evaluate teacher education in theory and practice. Analysis of discourse dealing with the central development perspectives provided the tools to achieve this goal.

The research interest was crystallised in three research problems: firstly, specification of the development challenges of Finnish university-level teacher education, and the nature of the development and evaluation discourse; secondly, identification the implicit theory of programme evaluation; and thirdly, finding ways to disambiguate the theory on the basis of the research data.

The basic research data consisted of self-evaluation material submitted by the universities. Other data included contentions of the Parliamentary Committee for Education and Culture and the Ministry of Education, the opinions expressed in the preliminary seminar, statements concerning the development of teacher education, educational policy programmes of political parties, the development programme for teacher education and the related background material.

The research utilised Faircloughian discourse analysis which examines the relationship between language, power and reality. The development discourse in teacher education was approached by employing the perspectives of evaluation and power. The process involved analysing the development and evaluation discourse in teacher education.

In relation to the first research problem, implicit assumptions in the evaluation project carried out by FINHEEC were found. On the basis of the evaluation project, this was further developed into an explicitly stated theory of evaluation, which includes elements from tailoring, empowerment, communication-orientation and, in the case of self-evaluation, self-review. Simultaneously, a model of in-depth evaluation was developed for further testing during self-evaluation.

The position of power in the institution or group conducting the evaluation clearly provided the framework for self-evaluation discourse. By the same token, the context of educational and evaluation policies determined the nature of the self-evaluation. During the first phase of self-evaluation, the faculties and departments of different universities produced primarily conventional text, the developmental impact of which is likely to remain weak. It was felt that one reason for this was the large workload from evaluations and, on the other hand, the fact that evaluations were set apart from ordinary development efforts.

The dual role of the Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council as a body submitting award proposals to the Ministry of Education and a body promoting development of evaluation was considered problematic. Higher education institutions seem to give a double message regarding their education provision: proposals for development on the one hand and a comprehensive representation in award applications on the other. This conflicting dual orientation works against a genuine, open and development-oriented perspective in evaluations.

The position of the Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council as a part of the Ministry of Education was examined in the research. Maintaining independence in drawing up the programme while being financially dependent on the Ministry of Education is not necessarily problematic but does require continuous critical monitoring so that the independent role of evaluation can be safeguarded.

As regards the development discourse in teacher education, all parties seem to be educational experts. Even the Parliamentary Committee for Education and Culture assumes the role of an expert and threatens to take legislative action if universities or teacher education units fail to achieve educational changes suggested by the evaluations. This undermines educational autonomy based on research in universities. The Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council was considered to articulate its power correctly and to provide a voice for the higher education sector.