Changes in society, among other things, result in changes in education. Modern society is changing the role of teachers into the leaders of knowledge society and carriers of change. Therefore the aim of this paper was to determine the role of teachers in the education reform and their position in the education system by comparing the educational systems of Finland and Croatia and analyzing their reform documents.While the introductory part of the paper provides a theoretical framework that defines basic concepts closely related to changing and shaping of the educational system, the central part of the paper deals with the comparison of two educational systems and the role of teachers in educational reforms. In conclusion, teachers in Finland have full professional autonomy and active role in the reform of education by making educational initiatives and by participating in the design and implementation of reform documents. On the other hand, in Croatia the need to improve education at all levels as well as to change the role of teachers from traditional to modern has been recognized. However due to the organizational, financial and programmatic problems this proved to be difficult. In recent attempts at reform of education, teachers were more closely involved in drafting the reform documents, however they all failed, therefore teachers are still just implementers of reforms.