The aim is to discuss the technical-political tools (the Europass, the Common Framework of Quality Assurance, the European Credit Transfer for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) and the Lifelong Learning European Qualifications Framework (cf. The Copenhagen Declaration, 2002; Decision Nº 2241/2004/CE), already adopted or in course of development in the context of Copenhagen Process, and their interconnections, as well as the domains of practice involved by these political interventions. The discussion in terms of a globally structured agenda for education (Dale, 2000) suggests some readings that focus on the recent ascension, of regulation forms more close to, or compatible with, the market model of functioning in Vocational Education and Training (VET) terrain. It is also questioned if the supra-mentioned changes are an impulse to repositioning education and training in the social regulation framework (Boyer, 1987), given the recontextualisation (Moore, 1987) of both in its relationship with knowledge and work in the horizons of a so-called knowledge-society/economy. So, on one hand, these developments deserves to be questioned considering the diagnosis of the contemporary constitution of a form of mangerial state (Derouet, 2009) and on the light of worries about the 'governance of the souls' by educational contexts, devices and processes (Gewirtz, 2008). The technical-political tools associated to the Copenhagen Process focus two main areas: qualifications systems and VET governance, namely, its provision and regulation (Dale, 1997). Thus, mobility, standardization and individualization seems to constitute parameters progressively involved in qualifications production at the same time that, just like with the Bologna Process, recognition, quality assurance and accreditation trace the new regulation framework for VET (Mayo & Cartmel, 2005; Antunes, 2008). The Copenhagen Process focus on two main action courses: (i) VET attractivity and parity of esteem; (ii) education and training credits transference and accumulation through Europe. This last question has been answered through the proposal of ECVET as a device able to fabric the transparency, inter-changeability, transferability and accumulation of learning (credits): that is the triple mobility, contextual, occupational and geographic. The proposed ECVET impacts also in: (i) the delimitation of the borders of the systems; (ii) the rationalisation of training; (iii) the curricular structure, organisation and development of vocational education and training; (iv) the work of teachers/trainers and students/trainees. So, it seems that ECVET promises a redesign of the universe of practices, relationships and strategies where the student and teacher jobs (Perrenoud, 1995: 13, 73-86, 211-14) gain consistency, form and relief.

The first phase of research consisted on the documental analysis of the crucial policy documents so far involved in the fabrics of Copenhagen Process (Reports, Ministerial Declarations, documents of European Frameworks and Principles…). The second phase consists on an exploratory research, based on a inquiry by questionnaire, involving teachers and students of some Education and Training Courses (based on a competences approach), focusing the way they interact, see each other and assess their involvement with this particular education pathway

Given that ECVET proposes a framework of competences and learning outcomes for the organization and translation of learning, it arises interrogations about whether the dimensions of learning conditions and learning processes comes to loose their salience for the sake of learning outcomes. In this way, the question remains about how to avoid a utilitarian approach that distinguishes the performance value and risks sacrificing the formative value of learning and knowledge (cf. Costa, 2005). To dismiss the centrality of pedagogic processes magnifies the probability and the effects of ECVET becoming, in first place, a performance assessment device. In that sense, it is expectable that new and disputed educational models, with its particular realities and identities, can be nowadays in construction, hand to hand with the supra-mentioned recent categories (or its reinvented centrality).