Continuing professional development of the teachers is a major orientation in the context of educational politics from Romania, included in the Continuing Development Standards and proposed by the National Center of the Teachers Development from pre-university education. Also, the process could be perceived as a great opportunity for self development because teachers are very sensitive to the discussions with trainers and want specifics solutions to the problems they confront with. The development programs try to take into account the school as organization, the educational politics, the training needs and development availability of the teachers, the interest of the community for school, the interest of the parents concerning their children education. The purpose of this study is “to surprise the perception of the teachers from the rural area about the continuing development programs”. The objectives of the study are: “to realize a SWOT analysis regarding the programs for teachers’ competences development” and “to identify the competences area for development and the most accessible training methods”. The sample of the study consists in 120 teachers from rural environment, random selected from West Region schools of Romania.

The methods used in our investigation were: the observation method, the focus group method, the interview method, the SWOT analysis and the Verbal Associative Test. All the obtained information will be submitted to a quantitative and qualitative interpretation.

We expect to identify what is the perception of the teachers regarding their continuing professional preparation. The results of our study will help us to do a diagnosis of this situation which becomes a starting point for changes to the level of the educational politics, taking into account the characteristics of this area.