Teachers and industrial education : (from the last quarter of the 19th century to the mid-20th century)

Abstract

By the second half of the 19th century, technical education was faced with the urgent need to implement a set of conditions capable of guaranteeing the training of qualified professionals whose skills would contribute to the economic development of the country. Initially, the diffi culties in fi nding teachers were overcome only with great diffi culty. All kinds of expedients were mobilized in the attempt to supply teachers with the required qualifi cations - lack of selectivity, incentives, foreign recruitment. Early in the 20th century, the Associação dos Professores das Escolas Industriais e Comerciais - APEIC [Association of Industrial and Business School Teachers] was created, and became a key mediator in technical education, acting on various fronts and wielding considerable infl uence among government and the ruling classes. The bulletin published by the APEIC became a forum for discussion on recruitment, educational methods, technical education and associativism. The appearance of the bulletin marked the beginning of a greater preoccupation with the recruitment process, and with initial and ongoing training. Symptomatic of this increased awareness was the creation (by decrees 5 029 of 1 December 1918 and 6 414 of 23 February 1920) of a design school, the Escola Normal para o Ensino de Desenho. Under the dictatorship, some eff orts were made to improve training and the status of technical education (under legislation passed in 1926, 1930, 1931 and, above all, 1948), but these never succeeded in placing technical education on a par with lyceum education.