Abstract
In the chapter, important ideas published in the SEMT proceedings over the last thirty years, related to education of pre-service primary teachers, are summarized. Being aware of how lengthy and painstaking the process of transfer of innovative ideas from university research to schools is, due to the inertia of the school system, our attention is focused on pre-service teacher education.
It is pre-service teachers who promise that innovation will be brought into schools naturally, when they start their teaching career. That is why it is essential that attention be paid to new trends in changing educational requirements.
We present six groups of papers selected from the SEMT proceedings. The first group of papers focuses on pre-service primary teachers' attitude to mathematics and how this attitude might be influenced.
The second group of papers focuses on a more general conception of pre-service primary teacher education. The third group of articles deals in general terms with the concepts of teacher education programmes.
The fourth and fifth groups of papers mention specific proposals for partial courses in the field of arithmetic and geometry. The last, sixth group of papers, focuses on specific teaching methods suitable for the development of pre-service and in-service teacher competencies.