Teacher training in the GDR was a major political project of the Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) and the Ministry of Education (Ministerium für Volksbildung, MfV), and was subject to expansion and reform projects until the end of the 1980s. Roughly two phases can be identified within the phase of institutionalisation of teacher training. Well into the 1950s, teacher training was marked by a newfound orientation that was declaredly democratic and anti-fascist. The shortage of suitable staff caused by denazification measures was initially countered by an implementation of various course systems of the so-called training of new teachers (Neulehrerausbildung), and from the beginning of the 1950s onwards by the development of a differentiated training system. With a series of SED resolutions, the originally ambitious plan, which had envisaged university studies for all teachers and had led to the establishment of pedagogical faculties as early as the 1940s, was abandoned. Instead, teacher training was now based on the Soviet model and the already tiered system of unified schooling. Separate training institutions and curricula were created for teachers of eight-year primary schools. With the prerequisite of a high school diploma, only those teachers intended to advance to teaching at secondary schools (grades 9 to12) were trained at colleges and universities.

The second phase of teacher training began at the end of the 1950s with the passing of the School Act (1959). It continued through the conception of polytechnical schooling, the polytechnical secondary school (POS) and the Law on the Unified Socialist Education System of 1965 (Gesetz über das einheitliche sozialistische Bildungssystem) and into the 1980s (cf. Schmidt, 1986). The training of teachers – who were mostly female – for the lower level of the POS, which was not tied to the Abitur but to eligibility for a POS degree, remained entrusted to the Institute for Teacher Training (Institut für Lehrerbildung, IfL) as in the 1950s. Three-year training of the all-female kindergarten staff at teacher training schools was structured in a similar way to that of the lower-level teachers. 

The changes in the training of teachers for grades 5 to 10 at POS in the 1970s were striking. The Pedagogical Institutes (Pädagogischen Institute, PI) established for this purpose in 1953 were converted into Pedagogical Universities (Pädagogische Hochschulen, PH) with the right to award doctorates. The PH-trained diploma teachers (Diplomlehrer) with teaching authorisation for grades 5 to 12 of the POS and EOS in around 30 combinations of two teaching subjects offered at each location, whereby they were usually only employed at Abitur level after a probation period in the POS. The course lasted eight semesters. The previous five-year model of university training for teachers at highschool level was phased out in favor of the diploma teacher model. In 1982, the diploma teacher course was extended from four to five years. The training continued to be in two subjects, but the previous distinction between major and minor subjects was dropped. The teaching practise, which had previously been limited to the final semester, was given greater importance with the large school internship (großes Schulpraktikum). The internship was to be completed in the second year of study and included classroom observations; it was followed by practical school exercises (Schulpraktische Übungen). The pedagogical and psychological curriculum components were also expanded. There was, however, no systematic introduction to education law. Graduates were only prompted to become knowledgeable about it during their later professional careers and often after the fact.
In teacher training institutions in particular, following institutional tradition, the grouping of students into fixed seminar groups of 20 to 30 people each, which had been introduced at all universities and colleges at the beginning of the 1950s, was pronounced. Each of these groups was supervised by a teacher.