The (mis)paths of teacher insertion in professional and technological education

ABSTRACT

This article presents the partial findings of a doctoral research project and discusses the insertion trajectories of graduates of undergraduate courses in professional and technological education, specifically the bachelor's degree in electromechanics and bachelor's degree in computing, offered by the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Bahia. These findings refer to a sample of 26 participants (men and women) of the doctoral research project. We adopted the questionnaire for data collection, and content analysis for the treatment of the information obtained. The research revealed a context of hostile insertion in professional and technological education and showed the need to spark debate on training policies and regulation of teaching for this type of education, incentives for teachers’ insertion in this field, permanence in this career and the training model adopted in undergraduate courses for professional and technological education.

Keywords:
Professional and Technological Education; Teaching Insertion Trajectories; Teacher Training; Degree in Technological Areas

RESUMO

Este artigo contempla os achados parciais de uma pesquisa de doutorado e trata das trajetórias de inserção de egressos de cursos de licenciatura para educação profissional e tecnológica, especificamente os cursos de licenciatura em eletromecânica e licenciatura em computação, circunscritos ao Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia da Bahia. Estes achados referem-se a uma amostra de 26 participantes (entre homens e mulheres) da pesquisa de doutorado. Adotamos o questionário para coleta dos dados e a análise de conteúdo para o tratamento das informações obtidas. A pesquisa revelou um contexto de inserção hostil na educação profissional e tecnológica e mostrou a necessidade de acender o debate sobre as políticas de formação e regulamentação da docência para a oferta deste tipo de ensino, o incentivo à inserção docente neste campo, a permanência na carreira na área e o modelo de formação adotado em cursos de licenciatura para a educação profissional e tecnológica.

Palavras-chave:
Educação Profissional e Tecnológica; Trajetória de Inserção Docente; Formação Docente; Licenciatura para Áreas Tecnológicas

RESUMEN

Este artículo contempla los hallazgos parciales de una investigación doctoral y trata de las trayectorias de inserción de egresados de los cursos de grado de Educación Profesional y Tecnológica, específicamente, la Licenciatura en Electromecánica y la Licenciatura en Computación, circunscritos al Instituto Federal de Educación, Ciencia y Tecnología de Bahía. Estos hallazgos se refieren a una muestra de 26 participantes (hombres y mujeres) en la investigación doctoral. Adoptamos el cuestionario para recolectar datos y análisis de contenido para procesar la información obtenida. La investigación reveló un contexto de inserción hostil en la Educación Profesional y Tecnológica y mostró la necesidad de generar debate sobre las políticas de formación y regulación de la enseñanza para ofrecer ese tipo de formación, el incentivo a la inserción docente en ese campo, la permanencia en la carrera en el área y el modelo de formación adoptado en los cursos de graduación de la Educación Profesional y Tecnológica.

Palabras clave:
Educación Profesional y Tecnológica; Trayectoria de Inserción Docente; Formación Docente; Licenciatura en Áreas Tecnológicas

INTRODUCTION

The present article presents a piece of doctoral research, whose central object of investigation was the trajectory of insertion of graduates of the Degree in Electromechanics (DE) and the Degree in Computing (DC) as teachers in Professional and Technological Education (PTE), as offered by the Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia da Bahia (IFBA). The data that we bring are related to a sample of 26 participants, between men and women, that reveal challenges, limits, perspectives and unique facets of teaching in this modality that have repercussions on professional insertion in the career.

We have organized our writing in three distinct and articulated sections: in the first section, we begin by exploring historical aspects of teacher training for EFA in Brazil; in the second, we highlight the methodological procedures used to develop the research; in the third, we discuss the analysis elaborated for the purpose of problematizing the singularities of teaching insertion in this area, signaling limits, challenges and perspectives of professional integration of DE and DC graduates, according to the results collected with the application of a questionnaire; and we conclude with some considerations, which do not intend to close our analysis, but rather to provoke reflections and forward propositions.

TEACHING AT PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION: THE HISTORY OF THE POLICY OF NON-TRAINING TEACHERS FOR THE MODALITY

PTE expresses, in its origins, the concrete elements of a structural dualism that solidified in Brazilian education the conception of an education for the working class and another for the elites. This dual thinking distinguishes the inferior and simplistic nature of education for the popular classes (devoid of intellectual and scientific nature), from the perspective of a more complex education, focused on the elites, ratifying the inequality between poor and rich.

From this view, PTE is born fragile, carrying the stigma of second-rate training, which reflects in the training of teachers for this modality, seen as something unnecessary. After all, why train teachers to teach children of the working class? It is assumed, in this thinking, a perspective of professional education that is distant from a polytechnical type of education, which enables "the indissociability between intellectual, propaedeutic and academic education with technical education, with the learning of the craft, providing omnilateral training" (Costa, 2016, p. 45).

In this scenario, a policy of teacher non-training for professional education is established (Machado, 2008; Peterossi, 2014), strongly based on the idea that it is sufficient to offer emergency courses, rushed in nature, to train teachers in the area (Machado, 2008). As a way of providing professionals to act in this field, the recruitment of professionals remains, considering work experience as the most relevant criterion, especially experience developed on the ‘factory floor’ (Costa, 2016), commonly devoid of theory and depoliticized. These professionals are linked to technical areas in which courses are offered.

In general, they have no pedagogical training that bases their teaching activity, resulting in the procedures they use in classrooms, or in workshops and laboratories, of readings on their own, improvisations and knowledge derived from experience (Ferretti, 2010, p. 4, translated by the author).

This scheme is based on the belief that "one who knows how to do something, knows how to teach it;" that is, knowing or mastering the procedures of a certain profession is enough to teach them. This imbues PTE with a deeply mercantile vision, "conditioning it to the productive processes, through a preparation for immediate insertion into jobs" (Costa, 2016, p. 55, translated by the author). However, the dynamicity of productive processes brings new perspectives to the world of work, requiring the training of workers with skills no longer restricted to manual labor, based on ‘know-how,’ giving signs that "the standard of craftsmanship, according to which the master of the workshop-school presented himself as the mirror that the student practitioner should adopt as a reference, is no longer sufficient" (Machado, 2008, p. 15, translated by the author). In this sense, requirements on the profile of the teaching professional working in PTE have moved to a new stage. This reality generates a mismatch between the PTE teaching professional's work profile and the newly required profile.

It cannot be ignored that this educational modality includes educational and investigative processes of generation and adaptation of technical and technological solutions that are of fundamental importance for the national development and the meeting of social and regional demands. This, undoubtedly, requires the offer of PTE courses and the provision of trainers with qualification standards that are appropriate to the current complexity of the world of work. Therefore, investing in this training is investing in the social, economic and cultural development of the country.

This new training perspective for the field of PTE has gained strength, especially since 2008, with the creation of the Federal Network of Scientific and Technological Professional Education (RFEPCT), through the promulgation of Law no. 11,892, of December 29, 2008. We highlight, in this law, the 8^th article, which stipulates the guarantee of 20% of the vacancies offered by Federal Institutes (FIs) for undergraduate teacher education courses, as well as special pedagogical training programs aimed at preparing teachers for basic education, particularly in the fields of science and mathematics, and for vocational and technical education.

Despite this, Resolution No. 6, of September 20, 2012, which defines the National Curricular Guidelines for Technical Professional Education at Middle Level (TPEML), promulgated after the law of creation of FIs, did not follow this movement, recommending that training for TPEML courses take place in undergraduate courses and programs (not courses) of different degrees or modes. In other words, the degree, as initial training for teaching at PTE, remained not mandatory and continued to be neglected when Law no. 13.145, of February 16, 2017 (Brasil, 2017), established renowned expertise — which means that it validates someone with experience and knowledge in the technical area, without any training for teaching, as being able to occupy a teaching position in PTE.

Considering the mandatory offer of undergraduate courses by FIs, estimated at 20%, and special pedagogical training programs, in our doctoral research we conducted a survey¹ by accessing the official website of each FI, seeking to locate these offers intended to areas of PTE that relate to more technical areas. Thus, we restricted the search to the RFEPCT, and found that FIs tend to offer more undergraduate courses for propaedeutic areas of basic education (physics, physical education, geography, among others) and fewer for the modality in question. We identified that, among the 38 FIs and the two Federal Centers for Technological Education (CEFET-RJ and CEFET-MG), which integrate this network: 25 FIs offered exclusively undergraduate courses, of which 21 offered courses for teaching in PTE; 13 offered undergraduate courses and pedagogical training; the CEFET-RJ offered only a bachelor's degree; and CEFET-MG only offered, in its framework, a pedagogical training course.

These data showed that there was an expansion of the offer of undergraduate courses for propaedeutic areas that are part the curriculum of basic education in FIs, when compared with the expansion of undergraduate courses for technological areas. To better detail this data, the 21 units of the FIs that offer undergraduate courses for PTE represent, in percentage terms, 53.8% of these institutions, while in 100% of the network it was possible to find the offer of undergraduate courses for the propaedeutic areas of basic education. We should point out that, in this count, the same institute that offered degrees for PTE also offered degrees for basic education, but the opposite did not happen.

This scenario of restricted offer of undergraduate courses for technological areas in the FIs overlaps with the low offer of pedagogical training courses.² This training, in general, is offered to graduates who do not hold a teaching degree and, although the law that created it establishes that the FIs are spaces that should offer these programs, we have found that, of the 38 federal institutes, about 12 units offered this training. This information implies that the offer is still limited in the FIs. Considering the law we just mentioned, which is from 2008, it can be said that the FIs occupy a restricted position regarding the importance of ensuring the legitimacy of PTE teacher training at the level of higher education.

It contributes to perpetuate the lack of legitimacy and, as a reflection or consequence, the low investment in teacher training policies for PTE, and the disproportional number of student registrations in basic education and PTE in Brazil. An analysis of data from the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP) reveals that PTE obtained less than 5% of registrations compared to basic education (Brasil, 2020), which implies that, in the light of a simplistic evaluation, it would not make sense to invest significant resources in the training of teachers for a teaching modality that generates a low return to society. However, a country's sustainability involves encouraging professional and technological training, and this modality can contribute to increase the chances of employability and promote innovation, boosting economic growth, productivity and competitiveness.

This whole scenario gives relevance to research that is dedicated to the reality of PTE teacher training in Brazil, especially to studying teacher training for this modality and, more specifically, to analyzing graduates of undergraduate courses for technical and technological areas. The graduates, for example, are sources of data on training, and spokesmen of their trajectories of insertion in the teaching career; their experiences of professional insertion, as well as their perception about teaching in PTE, can signal key issues to think about policies for training and teaching in this area.

Lack of research on teacher training for PTE and on graduates of these courses makes it difficult to know the limits, challenges, and difficulties that are present in this teaching context. Lack of research on graduates, for example, according to Paul (2015) and Simon and Pacheco (2020), indicates little interest on the subject, even though institutional evaluation is one of the quality indicators provided by the National System of Higher Education Evaluation (NSHEE), implemented since 2004. For Paul (2015), in general, there has been the multiplication of the so-called "graduate portal" in the country, which fulfills a more bureaucratic and administrative role, lending itself to the collection of information and showcase of courses aimed at professional development, and less as "widespread awareness about the important contribution of information provided by graduates to the Higher Education Institutes training strategy" (Paul, 2015, p. 320, translated by the author). In this regard, an institutional policy for the accompaniment of graduates, encouraged by the interest of the State, could contribute to the implementation and strengthening of actions that would lend this public the attention it needs.

Transversally to the theme, focusing on studies of former undergraduate PTE students, unfortunately, means to find a large gap. Research on the subject is rare. In our doctoral research, we conducted a bibliographic survey on this subject. A survey of theses and dissertations was conducted on the basis of the Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD), as well as scientific productions linked to events of strong academic credibility and wide national repercussion, such as the National Association of Post-Graduation and Research in Education (ANPED), National Association for the Training of Education Professionals (ANFOPE) and National Meeting of Didactics and Teaching Practices (ENDIPE), and the result was disappointing. Opting for the time period between 2015 and 2019, we found the existence of work on graduates in all these research bases, but under different perspectives, with a massive focus on propaedeutic high school graduates. In the field of PTE, most of the work was on graduates of technical courses of high school level, in the integrated modality. When the object was higher education, the most recurrent subject was graduates of teacher training degrees for propaedeutic areas. A single work developed a study on teacher training in a technological area: a 2015 dissertation entitled The training trajectory of teachers of the degree in computing from the Instituto Federal do Tocantins (Soares, 2015). However, this research focused on the trainers rather than the graduates.

As it is possible to see, the visibility of these graduates is still insufficient, and it is ignored that "the relationship with graduates is a form of interaction between the university and its surroundings. These agents make up a part of society that can contribute to the development of Higher Education" (Simon; Pacheco, 2020, p. 96, translated by the author). Regarding teacher training courses, it is urgent to obtain a return on the reality of graduates, to think about public policies that ensure the strengthening of professional ties. The increase in follow-up policies for these subjects can resize existing training proposals and outline others. In this sense, the expansion (in quantity and diversity) of studies on graduates of teacher training degrees in technical and technological areas becomes relevant if we aim to expose the background of the realities experienced by these professionals after the end of their courses, because they remain unknown. This work represents an attempt to reduce this gap in Brazilian educational research, providing an unpretentious contribution to the debate on education, the profession and the teaching career in PTE.

METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES

This article is an excerpt from doctoral research developed at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), submitted to the Research Ethics Committee of the same university, which was carried out between 2018 and 2022 and approved without reservation. This research included 39 participants, identified with different professional profiles in relation to the labor market given their teaching training. Thus, we clarify that this article is a piece of broader research focusing on the analysis of 26 of the 39 participants.

Our study was conducted on the Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia da Bahia (IFBA) as a locus of research. This institution offers two degree courses for technological areas: DE and DC, in distinct campuses.³ The 26 participants are graduates of both courses, but they were not teaching at the time when we conducted our field research, being then in the phase of seeking professional teaching opportunities in PTE. Facing a scenario of difficulties for beginning the teaching profession, we asked: what factors made difficult the insertion of graduates from DE and DC in teaching in PTE? What were the professional perspectives regarding their field of activity and their future as aspirants to teaching in this type of education? The objective of these questions was to analyze the (mis)paths of graduates from DE and DC courses, highlighting limits, challenges and perspectives of their process of teacher insertion in PTE.

The analyses that we present here are based on data collected through a semi-structured questionnaire, used as a data collection instrument. Like any questionnaire, it is an instrument that, for Stake (2011, p. 111-112, translated by the author), consists of "a group of questions, statements or scales (on paper, by phone or screen) usually made in the same way for all respondents. The data is converted into totals, averages, percentages, comparisons and correlations." The use of this instrument proved to be extremely useful, considering that our research was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, in its most critical period, when social distancing and other health measures were required to contain the spread of the disease. With the questionnaire, it was possible to develop the research with the 39 participants, who were in different times and spaces.

The questionnaire was created in Google Forms, a Google tool available in the option Google Documents, which can be accessed anywhere, at any time. It had 26 questions, between open-ended and multiple-choice questions, that aimed to outline the profile of the participants, who answered questions about age, sex, training time, as well as questions about their motivations for beginning the undergraduate course, their field of action, expectations for teacher insertion in PTE, considerations about training and work field in teaching in PTE, among others. For better understanding of the data, the participants were asked to justify each answer given in the multiple-choice questions, which also allowed a greater analysis of the graduates’ reality, ensuring the scope of the research objective.

The group of participants was located by the information provided by Management for Academic Affairs (MAA) of different IFBA campuses. Despite the large number of IFBA campuses, our research was restricted to four, because these four campuses fitted into the two criteria we established: they offer a PTE teacher training course and have graduates. We contacted the participants by telephone and e-mail for the first explanations about the research, and then sent an invitation letter for participation. After agreeing to participate, they had access to the questionnaire and were aware that it would be available during a specific time period.

After identifying the campuses, locating and contacting the participants and applying the questionnaire, we worked on analyzing and understanding the data obtained. In this last stage, we drew on Bardin's content analysis (1977): we did the pre-analysis, which "corresponds to a period of intuitions, but aims to systematize and to make operational the initial ideas" (Bardin, 1977, p. 95, translated by the author). We were flooded by impressions and orientations, using a floating reading; then we organized the questions in groups, based on the nature of each question and the similarity between them, to create categories based on the ideas that emerged from the questions. Regarding the understanding of the data, we referred to the literature about teacher training and teacher profession (Huberman, 1989; Fundação Carlos Chagas, 2009; Tartuce, Nunes and Almeida, 2010) and about teaching in the field of PTE (Machado, 2008; Oliveira, 2010; Pena, 2014).

THE (MIS)PATHS OF TEACHING IN PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION

In this section, we present the central analyses developed from the sample used in this article: a sample of 26 participants, who held teaching degrees in Electromechanics and Computing but had other work activities rather than teaching. From the answers obtained, we created categories of analysis that will be presented in this section.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND TRAINING TRAJECTORIES

In this section, we describe the group analyzed. There were 26 participants, among whom eight women and 18 men. Regarding the participants’ ages, there were: ten participants aged 20 to 30 years old (four women and six men); 14 participants aged 30 to 40 years old (four women and ten men); one man around 50 years old; one man over 50 years old.

Regarding the participants’ gender, it is noted that, of the 26 participants, 18 were male, contrary to what is often seen in teaching profession. This reality can be understood from the theory of sexual division of labor (Hirata and Kergoat, 2007), or the understanding of Electromechanics and Computing as areas historically related to manual work and intellectual production, respectively. It echoes the idea that these are "essentially" male territories, incompatible with female "nature." This means that, even though the courses in question are teacher training courses, stereotypes and gender representations seem to remain in the social imaginary, discouraging women to some extent.

The concentration of participants in the group aged 30 to 40 years old follows one characteristic of teaching: the aging of the profession. According to Gatti et al. (2019), late entry into teaching is an aspect of the profession, which means that teaching has not been attractive enough for groups aged 18 to 24 years old, for example. The author confirms that this is a rising movement, given the profile of teacher-training graduates in Brazil, based on the National Student Performance Exam (ENADE). Gatti et al. (2019, p. 155, translated by the author) states that "In terms of age, undergraduate teacher-training students become significantly older between 2005 and 2014," with a significant fall in 2005 in the number of students aged 18 to 24 years old who wanted to become teachers, with a migration to the group aged 30 to 39 years old and subsequent age groups in 2014, although to a lesser extent.

The declining number of entrants aged 18 to 24 years old in the degrees studied expresses the tendency of a certain lack of interest in the profession. Can this mean a rejection of the precarious working conditions and unattractive remuneration of the teaching profession? According to Fundação Carlos Chagas (2009, p. 35, translated by the author), high school students from public and private schools carry with them the idea that being a teacher is "working hard, being poorly paid and having no or almost no social recognition." Most young people see "the teacher as a devalued professional, and several of them highlight that this devaluation is excessive in Brazilian case, due to low salaries and an excessive workload. In the same research, young participants highlighted positive points of the profession, that include admiration, appreciation, respect, "to the point of a certain deification of teacher figure and role" (Fundação Carlos Chagas, 2009, p. 35, translated by the author), highlighting the figure of the teacher as fundamental for society, as a spokesperson of knowledge.

Looking at PTE, the entry of people over 30 years old into Electromechanics and Computing teacher-training degrees represents a new phenomenon, corroborated by the research carried out by Burnier et al. (2007). This research showed that, after several years of activity in the industry, technical professionals seek new professional positions in order to have better quality of life. In this change of professional path, the final destination is teaching, seen as a more open, accessible, receptive field with returns of an affective nature. This last aspect is related to the idea of being useful to someone whose life needs guidance; sometimes it is a nostalgic and romantic vision of past, which one wishes to live again in present.

For more than half of the 26 respondents, the teaching career was not a choice, but simply the most accessible way to access higher education. Lack of options was the most frequent reason cited by the participants, and it is related with the grade obtained in the Secondary School National Examination (ENEM). To these respondents, teacher training undergraduate courses were the only ones they could use ENEM grade to get into. In addition, there were not many other options offered in the respondents’ hometown, and these teacher-training undergraduate courses were the only options available.

This answer corroborates what other research has shown: that this is one of the reasons given for choosing a teacher training undergraduate courses (Fundação Carlos Chagas, 2009; Tartuce, Nunes and Almeida, 2010). The fact that caught our attention was that even those participants who did not claim to enroll in the education undergraduate course due to an interest in the profession declared to be interested in starting the career: 12 out of the 26 respondents said this. We infer that this desire may be related to the anticipatory professional socialization trajectory in the field of PTE. Most of these graduates graduated in technical courses before entering teacher training undergraduate courses, and many of them already had professional insertion in technical and technological areas. For many of these respondents, having training and professional experience ensures a certain authority to assume the teaching profession as a career possibility, where they might be able to use skills and knowledge in a professional area. In addition to this, the choice for teaching seems to be part of the workers’ strategy to protect themselves from the advance of the processes of precarization of labor contracts in the business sector.⁴

For Antunes (2014), we live in the context of a new work morphology. According to the author, the productive restructuring phase can be understood as being subordinate to the needs posed by the capital accumulation crisis on a global scale, whose starting point was the "1973 oil crisis." According to current situation of capitalist accumulation, the tendency of precarization and informalization of work, as well as the expulsion of a growing number of people turned useless for the labor market, have gained weight. The possibility of public employment in education and access to more stable work contracts seems to lead many people to consider the teacher training degree a choice, even if it is random.

We also identified, among the 26 people investigated, one participant who declared to have entered the course by option; however, he expressed no interest in pursuing the teaching career. In this case, we can consider that starting a teacher training undergraduate course may have contributed to better understanding the proletarianization of the teaching profession in Brazil — lack of autonomy, low symbolic recognition of the profession, precarious working conditions, low salaries, training policies contraction, precarization and flexibilization of labor contracts (Tartuce, Nunes and Almeida, 2010) — which may have influenced this decision. We can also highlight changes in the prospects of insertion in the working world, personal matters, findings about the PTE teaching context or a combination of these different factors, as factors that may lead to workers quitting the career, even without having tried it.

(MIS)PATHS OF THE PROFESSION: NON-INSERTION IN TEACHING PROFESSION X OCCUPATIONS AND FUNCTIONS IN WORKING WORLD

The researched group of 26 was not inserted in teaching. For this reason, they were asked if they had any paid activity at the time, and four out of the 26 participants answered they did not, while all others (22 participants) had some professional activity. Among the activities mentioned by this group of 22, who held a DC, one chose not to declare, but the others answered the following occupations/ functions/ activities: traffic agent, system analyst, administrative assistant, financial assistant, public employee, computer technician, information technology (IT) technician and receptionist. Among the ones who held a DE, the informed occupations/ functions/ activities were: school administrative assistant, school support, technician in industrial maintenance and electrician and teacher in free time, researcher with a master's fellowship.

Most of the occupations/ functions/ activities mentioned are related to technical work, which requires technical training. It may indicate that these graduates have remained in previous occupations/ functions/ activities; which is usual, considering the technical training most of them had in the areas of computing and electromechanics.

We consider it important to highlight the answer "a teacher in my free time," mentioned by one of the participants. This expression is related to the idea of teaching as a secondary activity, complementary to the main income; it is teaching as bico (side job). According to Haguette (1991, p. 111, translated by the author), bico (side job) is a "part-time job with the main objective of having monetary reward, no matter how small it is." For the author, "a person accepts a bico either because they cannot have a better job (with a higher salary), or because they already have other jobs (or even bicos) that, together, provide a higher salary." In general, it happens because "[regular] work does not offer personal satisfaction: even though the situation is bad with it, it can get worse without it. A bico is, therefore, a device in survival strategy" (Haguette, 1991, p. 111, translated by the author).

Unfortunately, teaching is often understood as a second option, as an alternative to fill salary gaps, an activity one can have simultaneously with two or more functions. Without the necessary time to perform activities that are inherent to teaching, the professional ends up doing them under precarious conditions. In the case of graduates of PTE undergraduate courses, the risk of a precarious teaching insertion increases, considering that besides the low number of teaching jobs available in PTE, positions which usually preclude graduates⁵ without a teacher training degree, the low salaries encourage teachers to work in more than one place, usually a technical area and the classroom. In this situation, the classroom usually becomes secondary.

When we asked the participants about the motivations for not being inserted in the labor market, 16 out of 26 pointed to lack of vacancies as the main reason. This perception of the graduates is closely related to the historical process of PTE, which, since its origins, absorbs technical and technological training professionals, and not the ones who hold teacher training degrees.

According to Pena (2014, p. 23), admission to the teaching profession in PTE "generally requires […] training in an undergraduate course in the specific area of knowledge in which the teacher will work," while pedagogical training is not required. In federal public institutions, master's and doctoral degrees are also required, and believed to be proof of mastery of the teaching conditions necessary for the exercise of teaching. We understand that this is a misconception, because master's and doctoral courses do not have a pedagogical purpose; they essentially promote training for research.

Bianchi et al. (2020, p. 172) state that, unlike graduates who hold teacher training degrees, graduates commonly "have a pedagogical practice that is built based on a specific professional experience in the area, not linked to systematic pedagogical knowledge." In other words, graduates are not trained for the teaching profession. Even though these professionals are inserted in the teaching profession, they do it without any pedagogical training. How do they teach? In general, they teach by imitating models, which contributes to the reproduction of teaching practice as "no more than the transmission of empirical knowledge or the teaching of fragmented, theoretically emptied contents" (Machado, 2008, p. 15, translated by the author).

Given this scenario, it is possible to see that Computing and Electromechanics graduates who hold teaching degrees face a double restriction in the labor market in PTE: a restriction of teaching functions, due to the shortage of formal jobs caused by a limited offer of courses when compared with propaedeutic basic education; and a restriction of access, due to the competitiveness with bachelors, who have been historically chosen as the first option by the labor market. This reality of non-insertion in the teaching profession is discouraging and can generate a disconnection from the teaching career.

EXPECTATIONS OF TEACHER INSERTION IN PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION

In the questionnaire, respondents were asked about whether they would be interested in entering professionally into PTE, and 20 out of 26 answered "yes," confirming they were interested, while the others (six) said "no," meaning they were not interested. Those who answered they had no interest were asked to explain the reason, and the answers were lack of vacancies in teaching in PTE, low salaries and the precarization of the profession, which generates devaluation. We can infer, from these answers, that starting a teacher training degree may only have represented the possibility of obtaining a higher education degree, increasing the chances of labor market insertion in other functions.

In addition to this question, the respondents were asked about their professional expectations in relation to insertion, and answer possibilities were great, good, reasonable, discouraging and I am unable to answer. Three participants answered great; five answers were good; eight answered reasonable; eight answered discouraging; and two declared they were unable to answer. For those who answered great (three) and good (five), the reasons for these answers tended to show an appreciation of the teaching profession, highlighting that teacher training is an advantage to teach in PTE. In contrast to this more positive view, there were 16 graduates of teacher training courses among the respondents, of which eight answered reasonable and eight answered discouraging. These answers point to a hard scenario with regard to the professional insertion of Computing and Electromechanics graduates in teaching in PTE, and we should highlight some points. For DC graduates, this prospect may be a little better, because teacher training opens the door to a teaching profession in basic education, considering that the pedagogical project of the course of all campuses involved in our research recommends training for working at this level of education. For DE graduates, PTE ends up being the only professional insertion prospect, because Electromechanics graduates only have this field of action; training in Electromechanics is more strongly related to teaching technical disciplines in the industrial area, with the possibility of acting in secondary-level technical training courses and qualification courses.

The insertion prospect of DC graduates in basic education is to teach computer science in schools. However, as stated by Castro and Vilarim (2013, p. 21, translated by the author), "computer science is offered in schools, but it is still rare to find Computing graduates with a teacher-training degree in these schools." In addition, the data from our research show that DC graduates who hold a teacher training degree, when inserted into basic education, are often confused with Computing technicians. As one participant explained: "There is a lack of opportunity for those who graduate in computer science education. The opportunities to act in education are rare, and when they come, the graduate role is often confused with that of a computer technician."

The unoptimistic view of a large part of the research participants in regard to the teaching field in PTE raises concerns about a possible abandonment of the profession very early, that is to say, even before these graduates have effectively had the experience of teaching. The absence of a policy to regulate training in PTE (Machado, 2008; Oliveira, 2010; Peterossi, 2014) may explain, to some extent, the low expectations of graduates regarding their possibilities of insertion into the teaching career.

The deregulation of teaching in PTE reflects a longstanding historical devaluation of this educational sector, particularly when compared to other forms of basic education provision, such as general secondary education. In contrast, the Brazilian National Education Guidelines and Framework Law (LDB) 9,394/96 explicitly requires teachers to hold a higher education teaching degree and to be formally qualified in the specific area in which they will teach. In general, public employment notices respect this instruction, disassembling any attempt of non-compliance with it. However, in the context of PTE, although this modality cuts across basic education, and although technical secondary school is also inserted in basic education, the deregulation of teaching for this field as well as devices that allow, for example, people with renowned expertise to act in PTE make insertion more difficult.

The absence of a legislation that establishes more objective criteria and requirements for teacher training in PTE allows the hiring of professionals who do not hold teacher training degrees for the area. This reality and the shortage of teaching functions in PTE in Brazil seem to support the perception of our research graduates, whose expectations of professional insertion were reasonable and discouraging.

TRAJECTORIES OF TEACHER PROFESSIONAL6⁶ DEVELOPMENT

The research participants were asked about continuing their training, about their actions and investments in their professional development. Out of the 26 participants, 17 graduates said they would continue; of this group, 12 participants invested in training courses in specific areas of their initial training, while the others (five) chose courses focused on the educational area. In other words, most respondents sought more technical/ technological knowledge, related to specific areas of their courses (Computing and Electromechanics), while the smaller part of the group sought training courses related to the pedagogical area.

Seventeen out of 26 participants decided to continue training, so they showed an interest in maintaining their training process; however, considering the areas of interest, there are some analyses to be made. The choice of training that is more focused on technical/ technological areas, for example, may indicate a tendency of migration to labor functions linked to economy sectors, in which there is a demand for professionals that master knowledge of specific areas of Computing and Electromechanics. To some extent, considering that 16 out of the 26 respondents considered reasonable and discouraging the expectations of insertion in PTE, a pessimistic view of the labor market, this possibility cannot be ignored.

We can also deduce the following: on one hand, the decision of most graduates to pursue further training in domains more closely linked to technical/ technological areas, rather than the pedagogical area, may be related to the historical non-training teachers policy for PTE, which restricts, to a certain extent, the qualification possibilities of these graduates, which could solidify the profession's teaching knowledge. On the other hand, we cannot disregard that research graduates are immersed in a professional teaching culture that has historically privileged specific (technical/ technological) knowledge rather than pedagogical knowledge, promoting the idea that know-how and mastery of technological knowledge are sufficient to teach.

We must not ignore that, among the graduates who declared not having continued their professional development (nine out of 26 participants), the economic factor may have been preponderant, which leads us to reflect on the importance of a professional development policy intended for fresh teaching graduates. The implementation of a policy for this public may mean strengthening their link with the profession, especially for PTE graduates, increasing their expectations of insertion into teaching and ensuring their continuity in the profession. This is certainly not sufficient to retain graduates in the teaching career, because decent salaries, incentives throughout the career, decent working conditions, among other factors, seem more essential to the advancement of teacher professionalization. However, continuing training policy may be able to soften, and in many cases to reverse, definitive ruptures with the teaching profession.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Our research data shows that the scenario of professional insertion in PTE is marked by the shortage of teaching functions, low recognition of the teacher training degree in recruitment processes and competition with professionals who do not hold teaching degrees, commonly technical professionals and graduates. This reality promotes an atmosphere of discouragement for teachers who hold teaching degrees and are interested in acting in PTE. This is intensified by state inaction, which has not been able (or interested) to regulate teaching in this modality of education, to enforce what is recommended in the 1996 LDB. The research participants’ low expectations in relation to their professional future in teaching, and consequent discouragement, promote the risk of permanent abandonment of the profession.

The proletarianization of the teaching profession in Brazil is added to this condition of the teaching profession in PTE. Low remuneration, poor working conditions, symbolic devaluation of the profession and unattractive career prospects increase the imminent risk of abandoning the profession. In addition to this discouraging picture, there is only a small number of teachers who hold teaching degrees for PTE working in courses for which they have qualified.

The doctoral research that led to this article was carried out in Bahia, a Brazilian state where there is an enormous disproportion between the number of hired PTE teachers and the number of hired basic education teachers. According to INEP data (Brasil, 2020), Bahia's public education system had 126,883 teachers working in basic education, in contrast to 7,710 teachers working in professional education. With regard to the Brazilian Census, we should note that the School Census carried out by INEP does not present more specific data about the nature of training of teachers who work in PTE (Brasil, 2020), making it difficult to identify and compare, precisely, the percentage of teachers with teacher training degrees in propaedeutic areas, graduate teachers with no teacher training degree, and teachers with teacher training degrees in technical/ technological areas, such as DC and DE. This situation creates an obstacle to develop analyses on the profile of teachers working in PTE, which therefore makes it difficult to accurately formulate training policies for this modality, as well as career follow-up possibilities for PTE teachers. Lack of detailed PTE data represents, per se, an expression of the minor place this teaching modality occupies in the Brazilian educational scenario.

Several factors, some of them brought out by our research, require a critical reflection on PTE. The professional insertion difficulties of DC and DE teachers, especially in schools historically oriented to professional and technological training; the scarce number of teaching functions in PTE; the organic relation between professional schools and the productive world; the rapid evolution of production processes and the status achieved by bachelors (who do not hold teacher training degrees) and/or technicians⁷ of secondary schools in teacher recruitment processes, all confirm the need for advancements in the debate on professional and technological education and provoke some questioning: Should initial teacher training for PTE follow the same model as the training offered for other areas of knowledge? Would pedagogical training courses be the most appropriate to train teachers for PTE? What is the role of the productive sector in PTE teacher training? Which institutions have the best conditions to train these teachers: universities or federal institutes? Could the training model for PTE accommodate a greater diversity of models? What would these models be?

The Secretariat of Professional and Technological Education of Ministry of Education (SETEC) started a plan of reflection and construction of alternative models to initial teacher training for PTE, when it decided to create the Teacher Training Working Group for Professional and Technological Education in 2007.⁸ This group produced important considerations, indications and recommendations to a baseline proposal of education degrees for PTE. Four models were designed: a teacher training degree course for graduates; a teacher training degree course integrated with a technology undergraduate course; a teacher training degree course for secondary school technicians or equivalent level and a teacher training degree course for high school graduates. Unfortunately, this debate has been abandoned by public administration and universities, but it needs to be urgently resumed by SETEC/MEC, especially if we consider the context of Federal Institutes context, which usually offer PTE and have been the institutions which have also offered, more broadly, teacher training for technical/ technological areas.

The research results indicate that, without investments in public policies that simultaneously reach training and teaching work in PTE, the interests of the productive world and private education sector will guide a teacher training model for this teaching modality, as well as the training model for workers in Brazil. If this happens, the choice of teachers under renowned expertise criteria or the statement that "one who knows how to do something, knows how to teach it" will prevail. The continuation of this type of hegemony in the PTE field will keep the possibilities of professional insertion of graduates of undergraduate courses in this type of education restricted. The difficulties faced by IFBA DE and DC graduates with professional insertion in teaching in PTE sets the tone of this restrictive process. These difficulties are consequences of a history of non-training teaching policies in this area, as well as a model of the type of training that will be offered to those seeking technical training in Brazil. These research data constitute a small sample of the historical delay we experience with the lack of initial and continuing training policies for PTE, generating, directly or indirectly, little political-pedagogical interest in greater investments in research and knowledge production on the subject. It is essential to advance in these and other discussions on PTE, so that it is possible to find feasible solutions for reversing the complex challenges of the teaching profession in this education modality.

• 1
  Survey carried out within the FIs, considering that, until then, only the institutes offered undergraduate courses in PTE.
• 2
  About this, see the National Council of Education — CNE/CP Resolution no. 2, of 20 December, 2019, which establishes the National Curriculum Guidelines for Initial Teacher Training for Basic Education.
• 3
  At the time of our research (2022), IFBA had a structure of, among other spaces, 22 campuses distributed throughout the territory of Bahia; an Advanced Nucleus, two campuses being implemented in the interior of the state; five Reference Centers, and an Innovation Pole in Salvador.
• 4
  About this, consult: Antunes (2014).
• 5
  The Institutes’ notices of examination for public jobs privilege knowledge, in addition to work experience, as two important requirements for teaching. Master's and doctoral courses are also required, considering that the work in these institutions can be directed to technical training courses of secondary level as well as to higher education (in which there is a requirement for master's and doctoral degrees).
• 6
  Professional development is based on a conception of "continuing training or lifelong learning, and may include possibilities to improve pedagogical practice" (Pereira and André, 2017, p. 7).
• 7
  We should note that bachelor's degrees and technical courses are not intended for teaching, and this type of hiring is one of the consequences of historical non-training teaching for PTE.
• 8
  About this, see: Machado (2008).
• Funding:
  The study received no funding.

Data availability statement:

The research data are available in the UFMG Repository (https://repositorio.ufmg.br/items/73e07b37-58f2-43ee-9665-56a2473648a4).

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Edited by

• Responsible editor:
  Andressa Santos Rebelo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1873-5622

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  17 July 2026
• Date of issue
  2026

History

• Received
  11 Nov 2024
• Reviewed
  08 May 2025
• Accepted
  13 May 2025