What does it mean to be a vocational education and training teacher in today's world?

The teaching profession shapes all other professions. Without teachers, we may not have doctors, engineers, or hairdressers. But most importantly, the role of teachers is to move our brains, hearts, and even stomachs – fundamental organs for thinking, transforming, enjoying, and suffering – to improve everyone's lives.  

Let’s take a moment and reflect on the expectations teachers need to meet in today’s world of constant crises. Keeping pace with ongoing changes is not always easy. Teachers may find themselves teaching in VET institutions affected by inertia. The COVID-19 pandemic led to school closures and a digital overflow with several side effects: digital and social exclusion and higher dropout rates. Next came the war in Ukraine, involving a huge wave of displaced students. Teachers’ inclusive teaching skills and their ability to provide psychosocial support were tested in host countries. Natural phenomena, like the catastrophic earthquakes in Turkey recently, can disrupt not only schooling but lives in general. The recent energy crisis meant teachers faced ‘freezing’ schools and students. The list is endless and totally unpredictable. When schools and society shut down, teachers should keep teaching and demonstrate resilience and creativity to ensure learning continues for their students.

According to the Council conclusions on European teachers and trainers for the future (2020), teachers are expected to prepare students for ‘jobs that may still not even exist’ to equip them with skills to ‘perform their constantly evolving jobs’. Teachers should support the ‘green and digital transition’, ‘promote inclusion in education’, and contribute to ‘lowering the rates of early school leaving’. Teachers oversee ‘learners’ learning outcomes, progress, and wellbeing’. They should encourage students’ ‘curiosity and creativity’, ‘shape their personalities and characters’, and ‘form active European citizens’.

However, the actual support and opportunities VET teachers receive for in-service continuous professional development (CPD) to maintain a high standard of teaching remain uncertain. According to Cedefop’s recent research findings, drawing from 29 national inputs from its reporting network ReferNet, participation in CPD for VET teachers is mandatory in 19 European countries. However, CPD is linked to a salary supplement or career progression in only three of these. Moreover, barriers such as lack of funding or conflict with teachers’ work schedule often impede their participation in CPD. VET teachers and trainers should be further supported and encouraged to participate in CPD, e.g. by involving them in the shared design of their in-service training. However, this requires needs analyses for CPD in work-based settings, which are currently only carried out in 10 European countries. Besides, there is potential to improve quality and diversity in the provision of CPD, and validation of required competences acquired on the job and/or in non-formal settings.

Effective policies to ensure VET staff have access to quality lifelong learning are clearly needed and countries are taking steps forward. However, persisting challenges, such as lack of impact evaluation on the effectiveness of CPD and insufficient needs analysis, must be tackled, this is beyond doubt. However, policies alone do not offer immediate solutions to the very tangible, practical, and urgent problems teachers have to deal with every day in their workplace. There are no miraculous recipes, no prescriptions, and no magic formulas in the form of a ‘metaverse’. Still, teachers are expected to always go beyond their limits to meet societal expectations and always rise to the occasion.

So, what do you think it means to be a teacher in today's world and what can be done to meet teachers’ needs?

Dr. Irene Psifidou, Cedefop Expert, VET4Youth – Teachers and Trainers Team Facilitator