Institutionalizing University-School Relations in Order to Strengthen the Role of Teaching Practices

The formation of future teachers' professional competence necessarily goes through the development of teaching practices, which are defined and valued as activities that create opportunities to gain experience related to the profession. Every initial professional forming views work experience in real-life situations as an integral element of competence development and professional identity. Studies carried out in recent years in Albania by various institutions: MAS, IZHA etc., have highlighted the great role that teaching practices play, by valuing them as one of the most important elements in the initial teacher training, but on the other hand, teaching practice, as an integral part of the initial teacher training program, representing an important period in a teacher's professional development, has faced issues such as: • Lack of a framework for the competences of the new teacher to enable the alignment of the initial teacher training curricula in different IALs;• The lack of a regulatory and supervisory document for the practice and its evaluation;• The mentoring system is present very little throughout this important process;• Lack of links between different stages of teacher professional development: initial training, professional practice / internship, and continuous professional development (IZHA, 2016; Haxhiymeri E., Mita N., 2015).This study aims to highlight the importance of institutionalizing university-school relations to enable the qualitative improvement of teaching practices, as well as to provide recommendations on how to achieve this relationship based on the opinions and suggestions of the specialists of this field. The study was conducted through the Delphi method by contacting scholars, practice supervisors, mentors, directors and specialists of the education department, middle school principals as well as university students. The findings of the study emphasize the necessity of institutionalizing university-school relations by crossing their present-day stage and provide concrete suggestions on how to regulate these relationships.