[The Role of School Principals in the Training of Future Teachers]

The present article deals with the role of school principals in the training of future teachers and addresses 1) the criteria for selecting mentor teachers and the qualification requirements for the mentor teacher role, as well as 2) the tasks and demands that they attribute to the mentor teacher role and activity and to themselves in the training context. For this purpose, 19 school principals from German-speaking Switzerland were interviewed. After content analysis of the data, the results show that the specific training actions of mentor teachers are generally not very accessible to the school principals. Differentiated selection criteria for mentor teachers are mentioned by the school principals, with criteria related to teaching quality being reported most frequently. Neither the diversity of tasks of a mentor teacher nor their further development and support come into their focus. They also see themselves hardly in an active role in the practical training of future teachers.