From Misplaced Subjective Professionalism to ‘Mediated Disempowerment’. Reflecting on the varying working status of VET teaching staff in south-eastern Europe

Zusammenfassung

This article discusses the working status of vocational education and training (VET) trainers and educators that are working in public training organizations in south-eastern Europe. The aim is to provide an examination of the changing working roles and settings of this group of professionals by unfolding the drawbacks of the strategies employed by central and local governments, but also by the professionals themselves in order to survive within a deliberately state-regulated professional area in which they are called to serve audiences of various ages at every phase of their professional lives and in a wide variety of content domains or areas of expertise and competence. To achieve this it reflects upon issues of VET trainers’ career paths, roles and competencies as well as varied policies with direct references to the current situation in countries such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece and Turkey.