Continuing education: a tension between responding to the difficulties of everyday teaching and rethinking professional development.

Abstract

As a result of the tertiarisation of teacher training in most Western countries, the issue of professional development has become part of a lifelong learning approach (Allen et al., 2018; European Commission, 2018, 2021). The continuing professional development policies that have been put in place have therefore tried to respond to this challenge, while adapting to national context. In the canton of Vaud in French-speaking Switzerland, in-service teacher development is essentially managed by the University of Teacher Education (Haute école pédagogique - HEP), the institution empowered to award teachers' diplomas. For the past four years, the Directorate General of Public Education has mandated the University of Teacher Education of the canton (HEPVaud) to develop in-service teacher training aimed at meeting the major challenges in education. Among them, the inclusive school policy, which was the subject of an official document published by the Ministry of Education in 2019, under the title "Concept 360". Its aim was to provide a framework and guidelines on how schools and professionals should deal with student diversity. Our contribution shows how this policy was translated into in-service training and how it was articulated to the needs of education workers. First, we will show how it has been linked to the existing in-service training system. Second, on the basis of systematic evaluations of the courses by the in-service teachers and their trainers, we will show a certain tension between two distinct visions of in-service training. A practical vision of these teachers who seek to respond to the challenges of everyday life, and a developmental (Uwamariya & Mukamurera, 2005) vision of teacher educators who aim to place their training in the continuity of the initial teacher education.