CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT IN PORTUGAL
This page on Eurydice gives all the information about Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in Portugal, and thus in Agrupamento de Escolas de Carregal do Sal
Some important facts:
- CPD is compulsory for teachers and the number of hours they have to attend depends on their echelon (there are 10 echelons);
- For the purpose of career development and progress, teachers must attend 25 hours at the 5th echelon and 50 hours of continuing training or specialised training courses at the remaining echelons;
- There are different kinds of activities based on continuing professional training: training courses, training workshops, study circles, short courses or, at the request of the Scientific-Pedagogical Council of Continuing Professional Training (CCPFC), internships and projects;
- Specialization courses, Masters and PhD courses can also be considered for the purpose of continuing professional training;
- Professional development can happen inside or outside school and it can be both online or face-to-face training;
- Continuing professional training is organised by different sorts of sponsors:
a. Higher education institutions;
b. Training centres run by school associations. There are 91 School Association Training Centres in Portugal (Centros de Formação de Associação de Escolas – CFAE);
c. Municipal and inter-municipal run initiatives
organised by schools and kindergartens that get together for the purpose of professional development;
d. Not-for-profit professional or scientific association training centres;
e. Education trade unions training centres;
f. Ministry of Education central services, training in areas considered relevant for developing the educational system and other sponsors whose intervention is deemed useful in this domain.
- Teachers can attend free courses at their local school association training centre (Agrupamento de Escolas de Carregal do Sal is one of the 5 school clusters that belong to
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