The Teaching Quality Standard Ministerial Order owes its beginnings in 1994 to government's three-year plans for education in Alberta. The government's mandate for Alberta Education is "All Alberta students will have the opportunity to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need to be self-reliant, responsible, caring and contributing members of society." In recognition of the role of teachers in meeting this mandate, Goal Four of each successive three-year plan has focussed specifically on further enhancing the quality of teaching in Alberta.

To ensure the broadest possible consultation and opportunity for input from all concerned with enhancing teaching quality, in 1994, Alberta Education decided that a discussion paper would be prepared outlining key directions that Alberta might pursue. The contents of the discussion paper reflected preliminary input from the Alberta Council on Alberta Teaching Standards. With a mandate to provide advice to the Minister of Education on all matters related to teachers and teaching, the eleven-member Council includes five field-based teachers, one teacher-representative of the Alberta Teachers' Association, as well as a representative of Alberta's teacher preparation institutions, school superintendents, trustees, Alberta Education, and one member of the public at large. In 1994 and 1995, the Council reviewed other Canadian and foreign policy approaches to teacher preparation, certification and career-long professional development. It then developed principles to improve teaching that the discussion paper would reflect.

These principles were:

• teachers are key and critical to the provision of quality education to students;
• teachers are lifelong learners and becoming a teacher is based on a continuum of learning experiences throughout the teacher’s career;
• quality teaching is built on a strong foundation of knowledge, skills and attributes that teachers use to help students learn;
• competency extends beyond credentials and means the "ability to do the job by applying professional preparation and professional development in the service of student learning";
• competency should be the primary criterion used to determine whether an individual acquires and maintains the authority to teach; and,
• individual teachers are ultimately responsible for the quality of their teaching, particularly where they have the opportunities to make key decisions that affect that quality (Quality Teaching, 1995, p. 2).

Under provincial legislation, the Alberta Minister of Education (now Learning) is responsible for the establishment of education standards, including those that guide teacher education. The Council agreed that since the Minister is ultimately responsible for ensuring "that students come first," then any new policy that provides direction about teachers and teaching must serve the best interests of students no matter where in the province they may live (Quality Teaching, 1995, p. 2).

Thanks to the advice provided by Council on Alberta Teaching Standards, the Quality teaching: Quality education for Alberta students," discussion paper released on September 28, 1995 represented directions that education partners viewed as a legitimate basis for ongoing work to further improve teaching in Alberta. More than 8500 copies of the discussion paper were distributed to key education partner organizations, schools, school council chairs, deans of faculties of education, Members of the Legislative Assembly and on request to members of the general public. The discussion paper explicitly invited its readers to provide written responses to the Minister about its proposed strategies.

On the basis of feedback in response to the discussion paper, the government's policy position was formulated and provided to stakeholders in 1996 in An Integrated Framework to Enhance the Quality of Teaching in Alberta.