The (re)appearance of vocational education in Portugal at the end of the twentieth century - The portrait of an era

Author(s):

Teresa Fonseca(presenting / submitting)João Caramelo Cristina Rocha

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

02. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

02 SES 08 C, Looking Forward: Challenges to VET

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-04

09:00-10:30

Room:

B025 Anfiteatro

Chair:

Contribution

The vocational and training education have become “a priority field of educational policy” (Marques, 1993), with Portugal admission l in the European Community in 1986. In this juncture is published that same year the basic law on the education System, allowing an original Education System, among other vocational training, responding to the urgent need for measures that would permit the use of funds allocated to education/vocational training for students that have finish compulsory education (at that time of 9 years), granted even before the drafting and approval of educational Development Program for Portugal (PRODEP). This new vision of education based on the successful inclusion of young people in an competitive and now extended job market with guaranteed quality, duration and formal recognition by a diploma and informal through the employers of their training area.

Therefore are created the conditions for the (re) appearance of Portuguese vocational education (VE)in vocational schools by Decree-Law 26/89 of 21 January, which “represented one of the most profound, massive, meaningful and promising innovations in the Portuguese educational scenery(...)“(Marques, 1993). This law regulates the legal status of these schools and stipulates the organization of courses "preferably in units of variableextent, combined with each other, according to progressively higher levels of education and professional qualification" (Marques, 1993).

However, the policy production of the VE has been marked in the last three decades by the constant and successive changes in educational policies that result from the alternation of governments of the Social Democratic Party and the Socialist Party.By its importance two moments stand out: the reform of 2004 and 2012. In 2004, Decree-Law nº 74/2004 of 26 March that, in addition to regulate this reform, outlines strategies for "getting results, effective and sustained on training and qualification of Portuguese youngest for the arising challenges of contemporaneity and the development of personal and social requests", to increase learning quality, and also combat failure and early dropout from school and increasing compulsory schooling to 12 years.

Referred to as a "model of success", with high completion rates and low dropout, vocational courses become part of the training supply of all schools with secondary education, ending its almost exclusively in vocational schools (95%).Ordinance nº 550C dated May 21 approving creation, organization and management structure of the curriculum, and learning vocational courses evaluation and certification at secondary level, regardless of the legal nature of education and training institutions that are offered, however without compromise ever the curriculum modular organization .

In 2012 there’s a new investment in vocational education justified by the country socio-economic issues and a commitment to competitiveness, employment and economic growth, making it a priority to increase the number of young professionals who follow the pathways of secondary vocational education, to encourage linkages between the various private promoters, in a financial rationalization logic, creating an integrated system of school and vocational guidance and ensure greater coordination between schools and companies, in order to disseminate jobs and students skills.

In this communication we will address in particular how different contexts teachers, vocational schools and secondary schools, public and private education, have incorporated the pedagogical and methodological principles associated with this teaching model - a modular structure throughout these three decades and how they have developed, adapted and adjusted, its pedagogical, scientific - technological and relational skills to empower teaching perform, exposed in various documents and decrees produced by the Ministry of Education since 1989, motivated by the need to overcome the difficulties and doubts of the pedagogical directions and the teachers themselves, in relation to teaching method implementation in different school contexts.

Method

Major changes in educational policies in these last three decades has caused structural impacts on the education system in general and vocational education in particular, and it is therefore appropriate and even mandatory decompose and reflect on this situation in a retrospective manner in order to seek recover the entire pathway of vocational education in Portugal and find direction and way to all the changes that have been happening in it. The period after the 1974 revolution is one that deserves more attention,being recent it has been the least studied. We must therefore make a diachronic analysis beginning on the (re) appearanceof thevocational educationin the 80s, through the successive changes and reforms until the present, emphasizing the characteristics that are peculiar to them, as curriculum organization, curricula, disciplines, work training context, the evaluation system, structural principles, methods of evaluationand progression system, the pedagogical-methodological principles associated with the modular structure, teachers, pedagogical, scientific-technological and relational skills, the recruitment model,the form of hiring and training of teachers. In methodological terms, theresearchunderlying this communication involved document analysis and content analysis, from the gathering and systematization of documents produced since the early 80s, in particular by the Ministry of Education.The amount and richness of documents produced to address the doubts and difficulties of teaching directions and teachers, as already mentioned above, allow to collect relevant data for the analysis of what has been the evolution of the teacher profile resulting from the changes that were happening in this teaching method.

Expected Outcomes

The profile of the teacher of vocational education was set right from the beginning in Decree-Law nº 26/89 of 21 January, this legislation regulates the establishment of vocational schools, their organization and management. The organization in hours of the curriculum that include work training context, curriculum organization in structure modeling with specific pedagogical and methodological principles and evaluation system with structural principles, methods of evaluation, system of progression and career aptitude test, were and still are a serious challenge to teachers of this schools and pedagogical directions. There was from the beginning the need to hire teachers, especially in the scientific and sociocultural component with qualification for teaching,so mostly they were in a position of accumulation with regular education, which seems todifficult theinternalization by these teachers of this new teaching model. It was for this reason that the modular structure evaluation system only was effectively implemented in the academic year 1992/93. The 2004 reform makes reappear a whole set of challenges to teachers of secondary schools that have been struggling with a teaching system for which they were unprepared, resurfacing back to these teachers the same problems and challenges experienced in 1989 in vocational schools . So through this study seeks to reconstruct and understand the role of teachers in vocational education, which model recruitment and hiring nature, which has been the training for these teachers and what skills they are required.

References

ALVES, J. (1990). Avaliação dos processos de funcionamento das escolas profissionais. Inovação, 3, 53-66. ANTUNES, F. (2004). Globalização, europeização e especificidade educativa portuguesa: a estrutura global de uma inovação nacional. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 70, 101-125. AZEVEDO, J. (1991). Educação Tecnológica. Anos 90. Porto. Edições ASA. AZEVEDO, J. (2002). O fim de um ciclo? A Educação em Portugal no início do século XXI. Porto. Edições ASA. AZEVEDO, J. (2009). O ensino profissional: analisar o passado e olhar o futuro. Universidade Católica. Lisboa AZEVEDO, J. (2010). Escolas profissionais: uma história de sucesso escrita por todos. Formar, 72, 25-29. CORREIA, J. A. (2000). Da Educação Tecnológica ao Ensino Profissional - Os Mitos dos Discursos Vocacionalistas. A página da Educação N.º 94, Ano 9, Setembro. GRÁCIO, S. (1998). Ensinos técnicos e política em Portugal. Coleção Estudos e documentos Instituto Piaget. MARQUES, M. (1993). O Modelo Educativo das Escolas Profissionais: Um Campo Potencial de Inovação. Lisboa. EDUCA MINISTERIO DA EDUCAÇÃO – GETAP (1991) Novos Rumos para o Ensino Tecnológico e Profissional in Actas da conferência Nacional. Edições Afrontamento. Porto. MONTALVÃO e SILVA, J., SILVA, A., E FONSECA, J. (1996). Relatório de avaliação do sistema das escolas profissionais. Lisboa: Ministério da Educação. NACEM – Orvalho, L., Graça, M., Leite, E., Marçal, C., Silva, A. & Teixeira, A. (1992). A estrutura modular nas escolas profissionais. Quadro de inteligibilidade. Porto: GETAP-ME. NACEM – Orvalho, L., Graça, M., Leite, E., Marçal, C., Silva, A. & Teixeira, A. (1993). Estrutura modular nas escolas profissionais. Porto: GETAP-ME. Legislation Decreto-Lei n.º 26/89. D.R. n.º 18, Série I de 1989-01-21 Decreto-Lei n.º 70/93. D.R. n.º 58, Série I-A de 1993-03-10 Decreto-Lei n.º 4/98. D.R. n.º 6, Série I-A de 1998-01-08 Decreto-Lei n.º 397/88. D.R. n.º 258, Série I de 1988-11-08 Decreto-Lei n.º 74/2004. D.R. n.º 73, Série I-A de 2004-03-26 Portaria n.º 797/2006. D.R. n.º 154, Série I de 2006-08-10 Decreto-Lei n.º 139/2012. D.R. n.º 129, Série I de 2012-07-05 Decreto-Lei n.º 91/2013. D.R. n.º 131, Série I de 2013-07-10 Despacho Normativo n.º 194-A/83. D.R. n.º 243, Suplemento, Série I de 1983-10-21 Lei n.º 46/86. D.R. n.º 237, Série I de 1986-10-14 Portaria n.º 423/92. D.R. n.º 118, Série I-B de 1992-05-22 Portaria n.º 1243/90. D.R. n.º 300, Série I de 1990-12-31 Portaria n.º 550-C/2004. D.R. n.º 119, Suplemento, Série I-B de 2004-05-21 Portaria n.º 74-A/2013. D.R. n.º 33, Suplemento, Série I de 2013-02-15

Author Information

Teresa Fonseca (presenting / submitting)

Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências da Educaçao

Ciências da Educação

Porto

João Caramelo

Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências da Educaçao, Portugal

Cristina Rocha