Northeast Normal University (NENU) regards education and teaching as its foundation, takes the fundamental task as leading the development of education and cultivating scientific and educational talents, establishes the concept of "education of respect, education of creation", and equips students with solid knowledge, innovative spirit, practical ability, international vision and sense of social responsibility so that students will  become visionary, competent and responsible autonomous learners and grow to be excellent teachers, future educators and other advanced specialized talents. What’s more, its graduates can be qualified builders and successors of the socialist cause who can shoulder the responsibility of national rejuvenation.Since its founding in 1946, NENU has formed a distinctive characteristic of "serving basic education", and cultivated a large number of talented teachers and educators with high moral integrity, as well as other specialists at all levels and in different fields. NENU has been regarded as "the cradle of teachers".

NENU now has two campuses: Renmin Street Campus and Jingyue Street Campus, with 21 schools (faculties) and more than 15,000 full-time undergraduate students. There are 72 undergraduate majors (60 enrollment majors), covering 10 disciplines: science, engineering, literature, history, philosophy, economics, management, law, education and art, forming a relatively complete system of disciplines and majors with teacher education as the prominent feature, basic disciplines of arts and sciences as the strength, and strategic emerging disciplines as the growth point.There are 54 first-class undergraduate majors under construction at provincial level and above, including 46 first-class undergraduate majors at national level. Except the newly established majors, 100% of the undergraduate enrollment majors are first-class undergraduate majors under construction at provincial level and above. Four majors, including biological science, Chinese language and literature, elementary education, and history, have passed the third level of teacher education professional accreditation by the Ministry of Education, and 16 majors such as chemistry and physics, have passed the second level of teacher education professional accreditation by the Ministry of Education. There are 70 first-class undergraduate courses at provincial level and above, including 35 first-class undergraduate courses at national level.

NENU implements the following philosophy of talent cultivation, "broad scope, solid foundation, specialized expertise, interdisciplinary perspective, and diverse career potential" and adopts the cultivation model of "cultivation in categories and choice in voluntary", so as to cultivate three types of talents: innovative and excellent teachers, academic top-notch talents, and application-oriented elite talents. NENU has constructed an undergraduate curriculum system of "grasping both ends and promoting the whole process" through guidance-assisted education and integrated intense education, effectively integrated general education and professional education, condensed and integrated professional courses, so as to lay a solid foundation for students' lifelong learning and development of innovation ability.

NENU actively explores the reform of talent cultivation mode. As the first university to propose and practise the tripartite cooperation model of collaborative education, “Normal Universities-Local Government-Elementary & Secondary Schools” (U-G-S), NENU initiated a model of cultivating excellent talents in teacher education that highly integrated theory and practice and point to creativity.There are 22 base classes for cultivating innovative students (3 at the national level and 11 at the provincial level) for cross-discipline, institute cooperation, industry-teaching integration, and integrated cultivation of bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees.There are 3 training bases of the Ministry of Education's Basic Disciplines Cultivation Program 2.0 for top students , including those for cultivating the top-notch students in history, mathematics and physics, and biology. NENU's talent cultivation reform achievements have won 22 national teaching achievement awards, including 4 first-class awards.

In 2016, the expert group of the Ministry of Education's Undergraduate Teaching Audit and Evaluation fully affirmed the achievements in NENU’s undergraduate education in recent years. NENU has been considered to have a clear orientation of school running, with its talent cultivation objectives closely aligned with the needs of social development and highly compatible with societal needs and its graduates enjoying a high satisfaction rate in society.