The relationship between admissions criteria, the preparation provided by teacher education programmes and student teachers' (STs) beliefs about inclusive education (IE) are rarely made explicit. The paucity of data regarding this relationship leads us to question whether teacher candidates' prior beliefs matter relative to admissions criteria or whether it can be assumed that all of the needed competencies and positive beliefs about teaching well will be acquired during the teacher education programme. To investigate these questions, this study focuses on STs enrolled in three teacher education institutions (TEIs): two in Serbia and one in Slovenia. The study indicates that STs' beliefs about IE relate more to differences in the educational systems and the influences of societies as a whole than to admissions criteria for TEIs. Implications of the study for teacher education and admissions criteria are discussed.