Professional courses in Secondary Education: processes , impacts and challenges

Abstract

This article analyses vocational secondary education since the 1948 reform of the Estado Novotechnical education, extending to the Veiga Simão reform in the 1970s and rejected by the ideals of April 25, 1974. In 1983, it was reintroduced into secondary schools (Seabra Reform), in view of a new emerging vocationalist concept, Portugal's entry into the European Economic Community (EEC). New configurations of professional education in this system followed from 1987 with the inclusion of technological courses. These were inserted in public secondary schools in 2004 with the aim of increasing the supply of skilled labour and contributing to the increase in secondary schooling and to the diversification of the dual certification training offer. The data obtained for the study went through the gathering of the perception of the main actors involved in professional courses, which includes the students and the directors of the courses, regarding their importance, quality and social function. The results were collected by applying questionnaire surveys to students and semi-structured interviews to the principals of two public secondary schools in the Oporto metropolitan area, with tradition in technical education and teaching professional courses since 2004.