High school vocational education – termed Professional and Technical Education (EPT) in Brazil - has emerged as a priority in the education policy landscape. The 2024 National Policy of Secondary Education has restructured final three years of high school (Nivel Medio or NM, grades 10 – 12) from a generic upper secondary education to a differentiated preparation where students choose among five specialization tracks (or itineraries). EPT is one of those five tracks, and is championed by the ministry as an opportunity for students to acquire valuable professional orientation and skills upon graduating from high school. To encourage expanded provision of EPT in high schools (EPTNM hereafter), the Federal Government has put in place financial incentives for the State Education Secretariats – which are responsible for secondary education in Brazil.

While much of the existing vocational education system in Brazil is associated with its post-secondary system in a network of specialized Federal and State technical education institutions, the scope of nationwide EPTNM within the entire system of public high-schools is a qualitatively distinct proposition with resource challenges, complex stakeholder engagement, as well as needs for new technical, pedagogical and administrative capacities.

The current contribution focuses on a key challenge of this rapid expansion – availability and preparedness of vocational teachers for the public system. This is a critical area of research since there is no national policy on professional development of teachers in EPTNM. In Brazil’s federative governance structure, where states have considerable autonomy, the lack of a national policy has resulted in attempts to extend the dominant practices of teacher development and management in general education to the realm of EPTNM which is a very distinct ecosystem.

The core research question explored in this contribution is “What professional development models would be appropriate for EPTNM teachers in the current phase of rapid expansion in Brazil?” This inquiry is pursued with particular attention to insights from upper-secondary VET teacher development and management policies and practices in the European contexts.

The conceptual framework guiding this research is situated at the intersection of two streams of scholarship –theories on boundary crossing between school and work (Akkerman & Bakker 2011, Bakker & Akkerman 2019), and the concept of teacher professional capital (Hargreaves & Fullan 2012). While the notion of boundary crossing is well theorized in European vocational education literature, there is a paucity of such research in the global south contexts (Gessler, Nägele & Stalder 2021). The construct of teacher professional capital – constituting human, social and decisional capitals (Hargreaves and Fullan 2012) - is predominantly explored with relation to teachers in the basic (or general) education contexts.

In EPTNM teachers, one witnesses a heterogeneity of competence profiles not unlike in the European contexts (Antera & Nilsson 2025). However, unlike in the European contexts of upper-secondary vocational education, the scope of work-based learning and apprenticeships – an integral aspect of vocational education (Mikkonen et al 2017)– remains extremely limited and uneven in Brazil. The situation is further complicated by inconsistent contractual arrangements of EPTNM teachers and Brazil’s significant regional inequalities.  The current research posits that professional development of diverse vocational teachers in such a fragmented EPTNM space needs to be intentional about robust cross-learning (boundary-crossing) opportunities that are sustained through collaboration for critical inquiry and collective reflection on practice (Ainscow, 2016; Datnow, 2021), and embodied in teacher professional capital in all three of its constituent domains: human, social and decisional (Fullan 2016). The research is expected to provide insights on differentiated professional development possibilities for EPTNM teachers and inform the emergent policy of teacher development and management in Brazil’s upper secondary vocational education.

The study focuses on EPTNM in the state of Sao Paulo – the economic powerhouse of Brazil, and the country’s largest public school network. The State Education Secretariat (SEDUC-SP) has been one of the leaders in Brazil for EPTNM expansion with a focus on teacher formation and student exposure to workplace. The study analyzes the directives and content of SEDUC-SP professional development initiatives for EPTNM teachers. It also presents a critical synthesis of the state’s administrative data on EPTNM teachers’ professional background, their prior and on-going pedagogical formation, their teaching portfolio and contractual arrangements with SEDUC-SP. This descriptive analysis of secondary data foregrounds the design and qualitative methodology employed to collect primary data from EPTNM teachers from five schools within the same regional educational directorate in the state of Sao Paulo. Each school represents a different configuration of EPTNM provision. To elaborate, only one of the chosen schools has a 9 hour school day (as provisioned by the law on integrated or full day high school), while others have school day ranging from 5 to 7 hours (reflective of the legacy system still in transition). These schools also vary in terms of the proportion of students enrolled in the EPT track (between 30% to 60%), specialization areas offered, and the contractual arrangements of the EPTNM teachers. While EPTNM teachers with full time contracts are teaching in two of the schools, the other schools employ part-time and temporary teachers in partnership with state and federal level VET institutions whose offerings include post-secondary level vocational training and degrees. The semi-structured interviews with the EPTNM teachers (currently in progress) focus on their teaching strategies, challenges and successes, collaboration with general education teachers, pedagogical support received from school, regional and central office leadership and their perceived professional development needs – both pedagogically and with the employment sector. In additional, key administrative officials responsible for managing teacher professional development of EPTNM teachers at the regional directorate and the SEDUC-SP central office are also being interviewed. These interviews focus on both the rationale and perceived efficacy of the current professional development models, as well as strategies planned to effectuate the state’s EPTNM access and quality aspirations. Reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2022) of the interview data will provide a nuanced understanding of the pedagogical challenges and needs of EPTNM teachers, and help inform a differentiated and coherent model of professional development along their teaching journey with SEDUC-SP.

Analysis of the secondary data reveals that SEDUC-SP has put in place an aspirational system for pedagogical formation for EPTNM teachers. A central component of that system is a mandatory distance-learning course which provides a shared pedagogical foundation for teachers and emphasizes the integration of technical knowledge with active methodologies and student-centered approaches. In addition to this initial training, the state promotes peer-based professional development through an initiative called “Multiplica” – however this is not a mandatory program. When it comes to on-going professional development opportunities for EPTNM teachers, it is supported through structured online lesson-planning activities conducted within the scope of ATPC (Collective Pedagogical Work Sessions). While ATPC is mandatory, it is offered for varying hours for part-time teachers, depending on their teaching load. This later issue (ATPC variability) indicates that while there is a strong effort within the SEDUC-SP to provide pedagogical training to all EPTNM teachers, a point of fragility in the current system lies in the uneven availability of in-service professional development opportunities within part-time teachers’ working hours. Significantly, an absolute majority (88%) of EPTNM teachers in the state are working part-time in schools while maintaining their professional affiliation with the industry. While such a state of affairs might be desirable in mature European VET systems (such as in Switzerland); lack of prior pedagogical training of the EPTNM teachers makes the quality of their professional development – both at initiation of their teaching careers and on an ongoing basis – remains a critically important factor for the system’s success in the Brazilian context (de Carvalho 2025, Itaú Foundation 2024). ECER 2026 provides an opportunity for this research to engage with and learn from European perspectives in order to balance pedagogical continuity and professional compatibility in professional development provisions for EPTNM teachers in Sao Paulo and Brazil at large.

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