Keywords

1 Introduction

The professionalization of teachers in Spain goes back to the modernization of the educational system in 1970. It is only then that primary school teachers were required to attend university. The same law ruling that, LGE, established the requirements for secondary education teachers, VET teachers included. During the 1980s and 1990s, there was a debate on two contradictory trends, in the middle of the struggle between decentralization and recentralization of educational decisions and school autonomy: one in line with the professionalization of teachers and the opposite speaking about the proletarization of teachers as a result of the increasing demands in terms of bureaucratic work and increasing control over their work.

It is nowadays completely out of doubt that good teaching requires both technical as well as pedagogical competence. Appropriate performance of teaching or training demands an understanding of teaching as professional practice (Imbernón 2015; Marcelo 2009; Vaillant 2009), where initial education is a relevant first step towards a career where lifelong learning also becomes a necessary component (González-Sanmamed 2009; Fernández Enguita 2003).

In this chapter, we will describe the systems of initial education of VET teachers and trainers, its features and requirements, describing the different requirements and features for formal VET teachers and non-formal VET trainers. We will then briefly explain the continuing education offer addressed to these teachers and trainers. We will end the chapter pointing to the challenges of the education of VET teachers and trainers.

Let us start by providing a picture of vocational education teachers. We can only provide information about formal VET teachers (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura & Deporte 2017), as there is no official record of data about non-formal vocational trainers.

  • There has been an increase in the number of VET teachers: while in school year 2006–2007, there were 21,519, by school year 2016–2017, there were 29,969. In the same period of time, teachers in the academic secondary pathways (4 years of compulsory school plus 2 years of the baccalaureates) moved from 170,144 to 179,245.

  • As opposed to what happens in the rest of the non-university school system, there are more male VET teachers (56.1%) than women (43.9%).

  • VET teachers are older than the rest of teachers in the school system: 77.6% are over 40 years, while the proportion is of 76% for secondary school teachers and 61.2% for primary teachers.

  • Among VET teachers, there are two different bodies, with different wages as well as entry requirements. Technical teachers (with no requirement of master studies and, for certain occupational sectors, even no requirement of university studies at all) and secondary teachers (with the need to have a university degree of master or equivalent).

  • Regarding the distribution of teachers among different occupational sectors, data from the Department of Education (Ministerio de Educación 2011) showed a picture, in the first map ever of Spanish VET, where one can clearly identify relevant weaknesses of the VET system, related to the cost, planning, funding, involvement and commitment of both the education and the productive system, the administration and employers. More than half of VET teachers were employed in two occupational sectors (management and administration and computing) and in the cross-sectoral field (Introduction to the world of work, FOL). Eight occupational sectors gathered only 1/6th of all VET teachers (tourism, personal care, mechanical production, maintenance, clinical diagnostic, health, electrical and automatic systems), while the remaining third was employed in the remaining occupational sectors.

VET teachers can work either in public or in private schools; and a pedagogical accreditation to be employed is a requirement in both cases.

Access in the public system requires also taking a competitive exam and only those who pass it are able to work in the public schools. Once the exam is passed, two possibilities are open: The first one, there is a second competitive phase where some teachers can become civil servants according not only to their marks in the exam but also to a varied set of merits (among which degrees, languages and mainly experience as teachers are the most relevant ones). Those who pass the exam but cannot get a position as civil servant (only a limited number is available every year) enter a pool of possible teachers that are then listed, again according to their merits, and that are called to teach in schools where there are vacancies or to substitute teachers under leave. Even if their working conditions are similar, their wages are lower than those of civil servants.

Private VET schools hire teachers according to their own criteria, as any private company, provided they have the pedagogical accreditation. Teachers in private schools have more teaching hours, worse working conditions and less wages than their colleagues in the public service.

2 VET Teachers and Trainers

Before getting into any further detail, we want to clarify the different status, background and working conditions of VET teachers and vocational trainers. The preceding chapters have shown the three different subsystems within VET, and in the current chapter, we will refer to formal VET teachers and to non-formal vocational trainers. They work in different subsystems, have different roles and different backgrounds and requirements too; all of which result in different professional identities.

Regarding formal VET teachers, two words are used in Spanish to refer to teachers, maestro, which applies for pre-school and primary school teachers, and profesor, which is used for all secondary teachers. The Spanish word for trainers is that of formador, which entails a non-academic character and an occupational orientation. Only teachers work in schools, while trainers work in educational institutions out of schools. For in-company trainers, those in charge of VET students in their FCT module, the word we use in Spanish is tutor or instructor; we will not refer to these in this chapter, and they are not required any specific pedagogical training, even if the Chambers have provided short induction courses in the past two decades (Cámaras 2000).

VET teachers belong to two different bodies according to their access into the system, and this implies differential wages and social prestige: they can be secondary school teachers or technical VET teachers. Since 2006, it is required to have a university bachelor degree prior to a master degree to become a secondary or VET school teacher. However, teachers who joined the system before 2006 do not necessarily have a university degree, as a vocational qualification sufficed in the past, and the equivalence among categories is specified in the Royal Decree RD 276/2007.

The weight of these requirements upon vocational identities of teachers, according to Tejada (2018), vary upon educational background, contract, professional competencies and profile, initial and continuing training. The latter is the dimension around which this chapter is focused, even though referring to social and structural dimensions and not to the individual nor biographical ones.

Economic, political, social, cultural and administrative transformations challenge professional identities of teachers (Vaillant 2009), and we will try to pay attention to them. The education of VET teachers should be directed towards the formation of a professional identity (González-Sanmamed 2009) even if most master degrees do rather play a bureaucratic role not a professional one (Marcelo 2009).

As opposed to all other teachers within the system, VET teachers have a double identity, one as teachers and one as professionals. Tejada (2018) has studied the education of VET teachers (and vocational trainers), and he points to the relatively low relevance of initial pedagogical education as professional experience as teacher increases, in ways similar to the successive, sequential and non-integrated model that Bolívar (2007) defined for secondary teachers, whose professional identity does not have an initial bias bur is rather constructed along professional life.

There are indeed teachers who run their own business out of school, some also work as trainers towards the acquisition of a professional accreditation,Footnote 1 but there are no statistics nor data, be they official or not, to provide an accurate picture of this situation.

3 Initial Education of VET Teachers and Trainers

In this section, we introduce the initial education required to formal VET teachers and non-formal vocational trainers in the past decades in Spain, looking at both their technical and pedagogical background. In historical perspective, we may see that even if there is much room for improvement, the steps taken in the past two decades have meant the establishment of an initial education system for VET teachers where there was previously none.

3.1 Technical and Professional Education

In this section, we will refer first to the academic and/or professional background of teachers and trainers in the different VET subsystems, what is required of them in terms of specialization in the occupational field for which they intend to be trained to become teachers.

3.1.1 Teachers Within the Formal Education System: VET and Basic VET Teachers

The first regulation of initial education of post-compulsory academic and VET teachers was set up in 1971, and it was laid in the hands of University Educational Science Institutes. This short-term course was a requirement that varied according to each university. However, it mainly consisted in a series of lectures on pedagogical and psychological issues related to education, then followed by a visit to a classroom. There was no assessment of learning, but just a certificate of attendance to the lectures which led to obtaining the accreditation to become a teacher.

It was only by 1993 that this situation changed, with two main features: First, the regulation of a minimum length of the training, which consisted then in 30 h of socio-pedagogical training, 30 h of psychological training and 30 h of placement within a school. This 90 h training was reinforced through the introduction of the assessment of learning, which then turned into an obligation for students. However, this course was a possibility and not an obligation for VET teachers. It was only in 2006, that the Education Law (LOE) introduced the same requirements for all teachers in the educational system, both in the academic and in the vocational pathways at the post-compulsory level. This law established the need for university graduates and engineers to achieve a postgraduate master embedding mainly pedagogical contents. This is so ruled by articles 95 and 100 of LOE,Footnote 2 and it has not been amended in the further 2013 Law (LOMCE), which did not change anything related to teacher education.

Therefore, by 2007, with the Bologna process under development, a Royal Decree 276/2007 was passed ruling the procedure to acquire and have access to the education system as a certified teacher in any of its possible bodies, among which Technical VET teacher was included.

3.1.2 Trainers Within the Non-formal Vocational Training System: Training Towards Vocational Qualifications

In a parallel move, it was only in 2008 that legislation was approved in order to set a common standard and introduce the requirement for VT trainers of having both technical and occupational competence in the professional field as well as some form of pedagogical competence. At the same time, this legislation (Royal Decree 34/2008) specifies the possibilities to hire as trainers to renowned professionals, as well as it opens room for new modes of training like e-learning, tele-training as well as blended learning. All of these, however, have to be acknowledged by each of the occupational qualifications, which are the ones where trainers’ requirements are established.

For the weird yet legal chance to offer non-formal VT out of the Spanish National Catalogue of Vocational Qualifications, the requirements for the trainers are defined by each institution and in accordance to the funding mechanisms of the training provided. For the marginal dimension of such training, we will not cover this in the chapter.

3.2 Pedagogical and Didactic Education

In this section, we will refer to the specific training that VET teachers and trainers receive in order to become teachers or trainers, an offer that they can only access once they have achieved a previous professional qualification, that we have seen in the previous section.

The pedagogical education of VET teachers is only a recent requirement in Spain, even if there are differences according to the VET subsystem (Basic VET, formal VET and non-formal vocational training). It also varies according to the background and initial education of teachers and trainers. Below, we will provide information on the general features of such an education, its requirements and organization. We close the section with a comparison among them, focusing upon content and length of this education.

3.2.1 The Master for Secondary Education Teachers

Given that the teaching profession is one of the few that have an overarching European regulation, like architects and doctors, this is gathered in the Department of Education Order ECI/3858/2007, further specified in the Royal Decree 1393/2007. Here, we find the specification of the modules that this postgraduate course offers in order to achieve the corresponding professional accreditation to become a VET teacher. Being a master course, this is always provided by a university. The structure is the same for lower and upper secondary school teachers, and the content varies according to the possibilities of each university entitled to offer it.

This master course basically comprises a course of 60 ECTS, which in Spanish terms turns out to be 600 h, and there are three different modules: generic and both compulsory modules, specific and therefore optional modules, master thesis and placement in a VET school.

There are three generic subjects, one on psychology, both developmental and educational psychology, a second one on the sociology of education and a third one on pedagogical and organizational dimensions of secondary and VET schools.

Regarding the specific modules, the structure is the same be these a part of compulsory secondary schools or of any kind of vocational school, and they are distributed in three subjects: The first one being on the disciplinary dimensions of the subject(s) to be taught, the second one referred to innovation and research upon educational practice, and the third one, which is the most relevant subject in the whole master, about the didactic of the subject(s).

3.2.2 The Pedagogical Accreditation of VET Trainers

In certain formal VET occupations, people with a high-level vocational qualification may become a trainer within the formal VET system. Given that such a qualification, even if awarded by the Department of Education, does not qualify for university level, such people are not entitled to take the master for VET teachers. Even if they work within the formal VET system, they are considered as trainers or technical assistants, not as teachers, as they do not have a university degree.

For them, the Department of Education has devised a parallel way to achieve a pedagogical qualification, through a regulation that was first passed din 2011, through the Order EDU/2465/2011 later modified by the Order ECD/1058/2013Footnote 3 and every region has enforced it with different enthusiasm, in some like Valencia possible only since 2016.

This is a chance for trainers in the formal VET system that are already working; therefore, it is rather a form of continuing training than initial one, though it is addressed to achieve the requirement demanded by regulations, among which a B1 level in a foreign language, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, this being another requirement whose achievement has been postponed several times by the administration.

The length of this course is of 60 ECTS, and it consists of three different modules, a general one, a specific one and a practical one.

3.2.3 The Vocational Qualification in ‘Teaching and Training in Non-formal Vocational Training’

Vocational trainers in non-formal VT used to be required only professional experience in the vocational field until recently. As late as 2008, a requirement was passed for all vocational trainers to have a vocational accreditation as ‘vocational trainer’ or as ‘trainer in the non-formal vocational training system’. These are both vocational qualifications acknowledged and registered in the National Catalogue of Vocational Qualifications, the latter replacing the former, which had been first established in 1997 by Royal Decree 1646/1997 and was then renewed by Royal Decree 1697/2011, later updated by the Royal Decree 625/2013. Such a vocational qualification is required for all vocational trainers except those who hold a university degree as teachers, pedagogues and psycho-pedagogues or those who hold the master as secondary teachers or the former pedagogical accreditation for secondary teachers. Any of these requirements, however, can be also replaced by a professional experience as trainer of up to 600 h in the last 10 years.

As a matter of fact, this entitles most vocational trainers to remain as such even if they lack any proper education or qualification, by means of experience.

To enter such a vocational qualification and to achieve it become something relatively easy, as it is offered by public and private institutions, in both face-to-face and distance or blended modes (where only the placement cannot be online). Neither universities nor VET schools within the education system teach towards such an accreditation. The course lasts 380 h, therefore an equivalent to 38 credits, and it consists of 5 training modules plus a sixth one for the placement.

3.3 A Comparison of the Initial Pedagogical Education of VET Teachers and Trainers

Until very recently, as we have seen, the education required for vocational teachers could be less than that demanded for the academic pathways at both the compulsory and the post-compulsory level. The education system, which welcomed VET within it in 1970, acknowledged its particularities and the specificity of its vocational profiles even allowing to hire specialists with no pedagogical background.

In Fig. 5.1, we can observe how modules in each of the three pedagogical courses compare to each other: When it comes to formal VET, these are the modules of the master as secondary school teacher on the one hand and the pedagogical course for technical VET teacher on another, for those teachers who do not have a university degree. In the case of VT trainers, the course is defined by the vocational qualification on Teaching in the Non-Formal Vocational Training System.

Fig. 5.1
figure 1

Pedagogical education of formal VET teachers and non-formal vocational trainers

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University degrees are only required in the first of all three cases. The vocational qualification has a level 3 qualification, equivalent to higher VET, even if access can be guaranteed through a variety of means that make it available to a wide range of population.

Even if the access requirements to these courses are different, and taking into account that they try to provide a minimum common pedagogical education, we will see in Fig. 5.1 the differences in terms of duration of each of the modules, which brings us to consider that the main difference regards the length of placements.

4 Continuing Training of VET Teachers

Continuing training is very recent in Spain.Footnote 4 The continuing education of teachers has not been an exception, but it entails certain particularities. The origin of continuing education among formal VET teachers goes back to the 1970s, when teachers working in the education system were required to take further education in order to adapt their ideas and methods to the new principles of the system approved in the LGE. The same effort was taken in the mid 1980s and early 1990s, making of further education a tool to expand the principles and approaches to education of the reform passed by LOGSE. Fortunately, the structures develop to take such efforts have been then used to promote the continuing education of teachers beyond those efforts closer to propaganda than to education themselves, and there has been an increasing specialization and professionalization of continuing education for VET teachers that has had a much larger impact upon general secondary teachers and primary teachers than upon VET teachers, for reasons due to costs and organization of further education.

Continuing training is nowadays a demand upon teachers, who are invited to take part in further education courses, which ends up turning in complementary wages related to these actions. This requirement is also a demand by many VET teachers, willing to be responsive to the demands of the labour market (Sola et al. 2012).

It is a right and an obligation of VET teachers, as stated by LOE (art. 102.1), and it is the responsibility of the Educational Administration and the schools to guarantee that right. However, in the case of public schools, continuing training is used as a means for either promotion or wage supplements, which in a way distorts the value of continuing education. In private schools as well as in the case of non-formal VET trainers, further education also suffers those distortions, but it is also considered as a contribution for career development, school improvement as well as the development of one’s employability (Martín 2016) because it is taken into account among selection criteria of schools and training private providers. In summary, there is no rule that forces VET teachers (any school teacher, as a matter of fact) to enroll into continuing training: there are economic and promotion incentives, but no requirement.

In this section, we will comment on the different ways in which continuing education is portrayed, taking into account that in the case of formal VET, it is managed and delivered by the regional administrations of education. Every region has its own network of Continuing Training and Educational Support for Teachers, a network set up in the late 1980s and early 1990s around the approval of the LOGSE and that has evolved later according to the own educational mandates of each of the regional governments. In the case of the region of Valencia, for instance, these were ruled in 1997 (Decree 231/1997) and more recently in 2012 (Order 64/2012). Each of the centres of this network is in charge of planning annually a training provision to satisfy the demands of the schools under its jurisdiction, and in every region, there is usually one such centre which focuses specifically upon VET qualifications (as well as post-compulsory teachings in the areas of arts and sports). Such planning attempts to address the demands of school teachers but always under the umbrella of the strategic plans devised by the educational administration of regional governments. They are, for instance, in charge of the Pedagogical Course for Technical Vocational Teachers.

The types of training they provide take the shape of courses, in-service courses, day conferences, permanent seminars, working groups, networks to expand good practices as well as placements for VET teachers in companies.

We will briefly explain this latter one, with the example of the Valencian region, where there is a yearly call for VET teachers to be up to 50 h in a company of their choice. In the last call, published in early 2017,Footnote 5 54 teachers applied for it, out of which 43 were able to enjoy such placements.

A final paragraph gives a brief input on the chances for continuing education of trainers of the non-formal vocational training system. There is a state-wide programme that should provide a yearly plan for the technical improvement of trainers in different types of vocational training such as workshop schools, trade schools and employment workshops, as well as for trainers working for accredited training institutions, trainers in the continuing training system or trainers in VET schools. The Public Employment System is the agency in charge of such provision, delivered at regional level. Nevertheless, our own research conducted in 2013 (Ros-Garrido 2014) and 2017 has shown that there has been no such offer since 2012.

In a recent study by García de Fez and Solbes (2016), continuing education of teachers has a positive impact upon their professionalization, and this is particularly the case when the principal motivates and supports such a policy among the staff. Marcelo (2009) has also shown how schools can facilitate specific programmes for novel teachers who join them in a whole-school effort, even if the payback of such an effort has to overcome the access and selection procedures the administration sets for public schools, which may hinder the establishment of school teams. An evidence of the lack of stronger support for further education of VET teachers is the lack of systematic evaluation of such programmes and the lack of a long-term design and implementation that addresses the needs of teachers in different domains, such as teaching methodologies, update of technical knowledge or closing the gap between the demands of the labour market and the possibilities of teachers and schools to be responsive to them. Florido et al. (2014) have suggested a specific proposal for teachers in the occupational sector of tourism, in the strong belief that increasing the professionalization of teachers is beneficial for them, the schools, students and society as a whole. Tejada (2018) also defends the need to provide specific plans to support the needs for organizational improvement and staff development. Proposals such as this can be part of the so called ‘self-educated organization’ as suggested by Buck (2005) which confronts a school with both internal and external demands. Buck also holds that principals must go through further education as well, while the educational administration could show greater commitment towards continuing education.

No matter how much continuing education has increased in the past three decades, it is an area needed of improvement and employers and other social actors of the labour market cannot neglect their role in contributing to both the content and the organization of such an education.

5 The Education of VET Teachers and Vocational Trainers: Looking Ahead

The education of VET teachers has not received the same attention as that of the rest of teachers in Spain until recently. The existence of two bodies of teachers with differential academic background has been a burden for quite a long time, even if recent legal developments have ended with such differentiation and no VET teachers will access the system without a master degree, while those already within the system have to receive further education to adapt their qualification.

As we explained in Sect. 5.2 of this chapter, it has not been until 2007 that initial education of secondary school teachers achieved the level of master studies and it became then a requirement for all VET teachers. Therefore, the current situation can be positively assessed, as has been declared by Manso and Martín (2014) or González-Sanmamed (2009). However, this does not mean that there is no room for improvement. As Ruiz-Corbella and García-Blanco (2016) have shown, there has been a lack of planning by the regional educational administrations which has resulted in several vocational qualifications lacking specific initial education for their teachers. This problem is closely related to the lack of proper planning for the offer of VET qualifications, for investment in VET as well as for the lack of adaptation of the VET school system to changes in the curricular offer that cannot take the same periods of time than those in the academic pathways.

Valle and Manso (2011) retake the old demand set by Franci (1997) to point to the need to reinforce the pedagogical dimension of initial education, often hidden under the subject-specific content replacing its didactics, as well as in mechanisms that are able to guarantee the quality of schools where students take their placements.

When referring to continuing education of VET teachers, the chance of enjoying placements in companies seems very appropriate, yet very limited and therefore available only for a few chosen ones. Some have shown (Barrientos and Navío 2015) that VET teachers able to combine their experience as teachers with professional practice bring in a relevant input to their students. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ([OECD] 2011) had also suggested such possibility as a means to have an updated knowledge of the industry. A similar claim for bringing school to work closer in his regard has been done elsewhere around the world (Ibarrola 2009). In fact, Tejada (2018) assumes that professional experience is the key for professional development.

More than a decade ago, Buck (2005, 25) concluded that future VET teachers ‘must get much more involved in real working life, both theirs as well as that of their pupils’. He expressed this need of contact with actual teaching practice in this way: ‘The larger the demand –both on the side of pupils, to increase their individual capacity, as well as by the VET school, transformed in a self-educated organization- of a didactic competence mainly acquired through practical situations (in the classroom, the school or the regional context), the more limited will result the initial education acquired’ (Buck 2005, 33). Therefore, the relevance of continuing education.

We must look at all agents involved in the teaching and training processes. In this sense, the role of in-company tutors of students in their placementsFootnote 6 is a relevant issue that we have not been able to cover in the chapter. Their pedagogical training to accomplish their role (Leidner 2003; Marhuenda 2002; Marhuenda and Ros-Garrido 2015) is very limited, and it has been laid in hands of the Chambers of Commerce, which have done an impressive yet limited effort affected by the lack of an appropriate training culture in the country as well as have been negatively affected whenever there was an economic crisis.

A final consideration in terms of the education of VET teachers is the need to take into account the increasing variety of learners’ needs among those who attend VET schools, like students with disabilities or young adults with a record of early school leaving and hence scarce academic habits, unemployed people and middle-aged women who seek in VET a way to increase their qualification and prospects for starting a career, or migrant people with limited knowledge of the language, among others. The audience of VET schools has changed while no relevant effort has been taken by the educational administration to react to this. The return of adult people to VET in search of an accredited qualification and new possibilities for employment has caused the increase of the VET offer and the need for qualified VET teachers. The scarcity of offer has caused the introduction of selection procedures (Martínez-García 2016). In the short term, there is a need to increase both offer and teachers, as well as to consider which vocational qualifications will be demanded. However, due to the consideration of teaching as a public service and therefore positions offered as civil servants, the risk of stabilizing staff for professions which demand might decrease is a risk.

If we turn now to the non-formal vocational training system, we want also to comment on the education of its trainers. The recent requirement for them to show a pedagogical accreditation has been a relevant step in order to improve the quality of vocational training as well as one more step to bring it closer to the formal VET system. As we have seen, this has not been done without allowing most trainers who were already in the system to remain in it through their experience and without any further qualification. The effects of such a measure will be visible, therefore, once a new generation of trainers enters the system. But we have already seen elsewhereFootnote 7 how delinquent the administrations have been to gather data of the non-formal vocational training system to allow for its proper evaluation and planning.

However, we have moved from the absence of regulation to a very strict control nowadays, where some regional administrations, like is the case of Valencia, hold a registry of trainers out of which any institution should hire their own ones. Even though it was first established in 2001, it has only now become a public poolFootnote 8 where all vocational qualifications are covered, even if only for the training funded by the regional administration, not for all other non-formal training provision.

París (2013) and París et al. (2014) conducted a study on initial education and requirements of non-formal vocational trainers in several countries. It is worth noting that, for the Spanish case, they identified a similar proportion of secondary school teachers, pedagogues and psychologists among trainers, together with people with other backgrounds. These authors dare to suggest a university degree for vocational trainers too. Ros-Garrido (2014), however, holds that certain occupational families do not need such a degree but a vocational qualification. Marcelo (2009) reminds us about the accreditation of vocational competences as a way to protect a professional body, and links such demands to the will to increase professional prestige as well as wages.

Perhaps the answer to this dilemma lies in the demand of vocational education and training and the market value of vocational qualifications and accreditations, be they provided by the formal or the non-formal subsystems, and how they are perceived by society as a whole and the labour market (Cuadra and Moreno 2005). The requirements for initial and continuing training shown in this chapter point in the direction to improve VET teachers and trainers training and their professional competence and prestige.

Research conducted by Ros-Garrido (2014) and Ros-Garrido et al. (2017) showed that trainers in the non-formal subsystem focus upon the needs of learners and their implicit theories vary according to these. Similar conclusions have been reached by Barrios (2015), showing the impact of initial background upon such theories and beliefs. It might be advisable to employ continuing training to review one’s implicit theories, as suggested by Imbernón (2004).

To what extent does the education of VET teachers and trainers respond to the features, demands and needs of VET nowadays? The answer to this question is for sure related to other dimensions of educational policy such as the profiles of VET students, the update of VET schools (buildings and resources), the development and involvement of the actors in the labour market as well as the responsiveness of the education and labour administration to rule conditions to become and remain as VET teachers and non-formal vocational trainers, respectively. We cannot neglect the own interest of VET teachers regarding their expectations and needs regarding their professional development.

In a claim similar to others in this book, more involvement on the side of employers is expected also in the field of the further education of VET teachers if they want VET to be more responsive to their demands. This is particularly relevant in the specific occupational component of teachers’ education, without neglecting its possible role in terms of pedagogical innovation. The teaching profession as a whole is trying to adapt to changes in society, and this is reflected also in labour relations (Imbernón 2004) or social prestige, staff development practices or the global trend towards the assessment of teachers’ performance (Vaillant 2009). Bolívar (2017) refers to the trend towards a wider professionalization of teachers relying upon more soft skills. This is also the claim by Marcelo (2009) or Hargreaves (2003), to become catalysts of transformation. Could this be the case for VET teachers and vocational trainers?