Abstract:

Teachers’ education became a recurring theme in all circles of politic, economy and society also in Angola. There is a growing concern to find ways to bring about a change based on improving the quality of teaching and learning. Giving this situation, the attention is focused on teacher education institutions and demands for a consistent and reasoned action in line with the need to educate scientifically and pedagogically competent professionals to teach the new generations. Angola faced this challenge with the creation of higher institutes of educational sciences whose mission is the formation of professionals for secondary schools. However, is the quality of formation in these institutions guaranteed? What are the perceptions about the formation process and the competences required by the secondary school teachers, in the global view of a higher institutes of educational sciences in Angola perceived by its scientific and pedagogical coordinators, faculty, future teacher students and graduates? In order to answer these questions, we defined as one of the objectives of our study to organize a theoretical framework supporting the construction of data collection and analysis instruments as well as for the organization of a formation process required for the trainers. By a theoretical review methodology, it was evidenced that the concept of formation is complex, pointing, however, to a process that induces changes ranging from the cognitive to the attitudinal level. This concept is associated with the professional development of teachers, which could be translated through transversal competences recognized as teachers' skills used in promoting the teaching and learning process. It was identified as crucial the competency of learning to learn which includes, among others, adaptation to change, self-regulated learning, problem solving and critical and creative thinking. Therefore, we concluded that teacher education institutions should reflect, in the context of the formation they provide, on the professional development of the teachers and on the transversal competences required for teaching, to adopt more effective formation strategies. In this way, the literature points out as possible the education of future teachers to face the new challenges that the teaching profession demands in this era of globalization.

Keywords:

In-service Teacher Education, Professional Development, Transversal competences.