The purpose of this study is to reflect critically on pre-service primary teacher education and to suggest essential tasks for it, based on the stories told by five beginning primary teachers about their pre-service teacher education and primary teacher experiences. The study had in-depth interviews on the basis of naturalistic paradigm and conducted issues-centered inquiry focused on conflicts and concerns research respondents raised. Issues are categorized as ‘packaged teaching techniques? teacher qualities and disciplines?,’ ‘weak education for understanding of the child,’ ‘insufficient education of life guidance and counselling,’ and ‘poor reflection on teacher beliefs and qualities.’ The first issue is relevant to the identity of university of education, that is to say the reason for being of university of education and the other three issues are about what kind of curriculum should be offered to pre-service primary teachers to meet the identity of university of education. The results suggest ‘establishment and sharing of identity of pre-service primary teacher education,’ ‘expansion of opportunities for understanding of and affection for the child,’ ‘strengthening of capacities for character education and life guidance,’ and ‘enhancement of opportunities for self-reflection on life and education’ as tasks for pre-service primary teacher education. Finally, this study emphasizes establishment of the identity of primary education and pre-service primary teacher education, child-centered education, and establishment of pre-service primary teacher’s perspective on life and education, as general and fundamental implications for the development of pre-service primary teacher education.