Higher education teacher training: qualify professors to qualify teaching

Taking as reference the commitment of the OECD: "Teachers Matters: attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers", this article departs from three basic assumptions: teaching at Higher Education is a very complex activity; to achieving quality in Higher Education requires a very qualified teacher; becoming a qualified teacher requires good education. To combine the commitment to quality teaching with teacher training, the text proposes, first, the "importance of teachers" as a cornerstone in the development of quality teaching. The second section analyzes the evolution of the teacher role and its new requirements, including the challenge of the double professionalism, the teaching competencies, the institutional involvement and the openness to globalization and networking. Third, we analyze the processes of teacher education and some changes they need in this new route map: an education oriented to the practical development of processes and to the piagetian "accommodation" approach, allowing for responding to both the technical and the psychosocial demands of teachers, which is assumed as lifelong career development.