Waldorflärarhögskolan (WLH) offers educational programmes for waldorf pre-school teachers, waldorf classteachers and waldorf subject teachers. WLH aims att working with research and development in a Nordic and an international context. WLH is a national competence centre in waldorf pedagogy.
WLH has offered teacher education since the 1970s. In 2009 the pre-school teacher seminar joined WLH and are since then one organisation. WLH is a foundation for which the board is judicially and financially responsible.
In 2012 WLH was reorganised and since then the Swedish Higher Education Authority (Universitetskanslersämbetet) supervises WLH. WLH is public funded and the students are allowed to take study loans within the student finance system.
In it’s operational plan WLH states that a longterm aim is to offer programmes that lead to academic degrees. WLH therefore systematically works on increasing the academic level of the programmes and of the institution.
An important step in this direction was taken in 2008 when WLH together with Steinerhøyskolen in Norway and Snellmanhögskolan in Finland initiated the network NORENSE (Nordic research Network for Steiner Education). The work within NORENSE is financed primarily by the federations and is led by a council with representatives from the institutions, federations and external academics. NORENSE supports the peer reviewed research journal RoSE (Research on Steiner Education).
As a member of ENASTE (European Network for Academic Steiner Teacher Education) WLH takes part in a European organisation which arranges two-three conferences per year for teacher educators.
Organisation
WLH is organised as a foundation (stiftelse).
The board has the overall responsibility and has six board members.
The president/vice-chancellor of WLH has the daily operational leadership.
There are four departments within WLH: the department for pre-school teacher education, the department for class teacher education, the department for after school care teacher education (fritids) and the department for subject teacher education.
The study programmes board (utbildningsnämnden) develops and decides upon overall issues regarding the educational programmes as well as upon course plans, course literature, etc.
The board of college (högskolekollegiet) deals with overall issues such as the operational plan, budget, etc.