PROFF – Professionalisation of VET teachers for the future - Europa

is characterised by isolation: schools from parents and the community and fromeach other; teachers and learners in isolated classrooms.’To be effective, this coordination requires new ‘networking’ and interdisciplinary skills.Most changes just described were initiated not from within, but from outside the VET system,as a result of political decision and/or of pressure from industry. Often they challenge theteacher’s view of the VET system, of their own role and of the way they teach. And in somecases the changes contrast with teachers’ ‘implicit’, ‘tacit’ knowledge of how best to behavein specific teaching situation. This situation is made worse when government – ormanagement – fails to provide teachers with the time, or the financial resources to retrain.Where these resources are not available teachers (and their managers) will give priority to theneeds of their students rather than to their own training. In short, and as a result of all thesefactors, whole-hearted teacher acceptance of change cannot be taken for granted and teacherresistance to change is one of the most significant threats to the success of VET reform.In this setting, a key goal of many teacher training programmes is to give teachers a sense of‘ownership’ in the new system – providing them with the skills and qualifications to play anactive role in its development. In at least one case (that of the Dutch institutes for vocationaltraining and adult education (ROCs)) management believes that innovative trainingprogrammes are essential to prevent an exodus of experienced, but underqualified staff.3.3. Target groupsThe key target group for teacher and trainer training consists, by definition, of professionaleducators working in vocational schools, private companies and public organisations. One ofthe most important results of the case studies is, however, that effective human resourcedevelopment in VET requires more than this. Managers for the programmes examined in thecase studies were aware that actors at any particular level in an organisation have tounderstand the functions of other actors. In the Finnish META programme, for example,training was provided not only to teachers and workplace instructors, but also to managers.Again in Finland, Telkkä created a twinning arrangement between teachers and workplaceinstructors deliberately designed to create synergy between the two groups. In the Danish‘reform competence project’, there was a clear perception that changes are easier toimplement if training involves all groups of personnel with a stake in the changes. Especiallyimportant is middle management – which, without adequate training is likely to hold up theimplementation of reform. In the Dutch ‘dual trajecten bve’ project, training was provided foreducational assistants, instructors/trainers and coaches in vocational training: new professionscreated by VET reform. The Italian HEP programme, took this approach a step further,focusing exclusively on executives and managers from public and private vocational centres,employment centres, regional and provincial administration and trade union organisations.Other programmes with mixed target populations include the Portuguese programme19