The faculty of teacher education is the youngest of the faculties at Umeå University. It was created to develop teacher education and research into educational work as academic disciplines. The faculty has the overall responsibility for all teacher education programmes at the university, the development of teacher education and research into teacher education and educational work. Around 3000 students and 160 lectures and researchers are currently active at the Faculty of Teacher Education.

The faculty works closely with departments outside the faculty of teacher education. These associated departments provide courses within the teacher education programme, as well as research into areas relevant to teacher education in their subject fields.

Umeå University has developed a new teacher education programme that started in 2001. The main focus of the new programme is flexibility, modularity and professional relevance. All pathways have flexible syllabi, which enables the student to decide the content of the programme to a large extent. All pathways give students the qualifications necessary to enter a Ph.D. programme.

All courses are developed in close collaboration with schools and pre-schools in the region, in order to give the programmes a clear professional profile. This collaboration concerns both content and implementation of courses. Other profile areas are the use of modern information and communications technology, an international profile (e.g. student exchange programmes) and a major student involvement in course development and educational planning.

Research into the field of teacher education is concentrated into three main areas: educational work, subject didactics and education. At the faculty of teacher education, research is mainly focused on the new research area educational work. The university is also coordinating institution for the National Post-Graduate School in Educational Work, partly because of the well-established research in this area.

The teacher education programme at Umeå University is characterised by a well established infrastructure, a high interest in research and a number of well-established research environments. These factors are important to produce high-quality research into teacher education and educational work.