Continuing teacher training in professional and technological education: Importance, challenges and training management

Abstract

Continuing teacher training is an important issue, especially when it comes to professional and technological education (EPT), due to the peculiarities of this type of teaching in Brazil, mainly in the Federal Institutes of Education. Most of the studies already carried out in the country on teacher training in EPT have dealt with this issue in a generic way. However, this research addresses this issue with a focus on continuing education. The objective of this work was to understand, from the teachers' perspective, the fundamental aspects of the continued training of EPT teachers in relation to the importance of this training, the management of training and the challenges faced. To achieve the proposed objective, a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory case study was carried out with 31 teachers from the Federal Institute of Tocantins (IFTO), located in the State of Tocantins, Northern Brazil. According to the results, EPT teachers believe that continued training is an essential element in pedagogical practice. However, some challenges were identified in carrying out this type of training, highlighting the lack of financial resources and the lack of institutional incentives. Furthermore, when managing their own continuing education, teachers prefer learning from (teacher-teacher relationship), reading and research practice.