Is teacher training mandatory in Mexico?

For public school teachers, continuing education is a right and part of the teaching career processes. In private schools it depends on the institution, although as employers they must also train their staff under Mexico’s Federal Labor Law.

Is a diploma program education or training?

It depends on its design. A long diploma program with theory and reflective practice is continuing education. A short one focused on a tool works as training.

What is teacher professional development?

It is the umbrella term for both processes across a career: continuing education, training, updates, coaching, and peer learning.

Teacher education vs. teacher training: how they differ and why you need both

The two terms get used interchangeably in calls for proposals, school plans, and even laws, but they are not the same. Understanding the difference helps principals and coordinators decide what their faculty needs, and avoid spending the budget on courses that change nothing in the classroom.

Published September 22, 2026 · Geedle Team

On the left, a student teacher studying in the library (education); on the right, a teacher in a hands-on workshop with a tablet (training)

What is the difference between teacher education and teacher training?

Teacher education is the broad, long-term process through which someone becomes a teaching professional: it combines pedagogical, subject, and ethical knowledge with professional identity and reflection on practice. Teacher training is narrower and shorter: it builds or updates a specific skill — a teaching method, a tool, an assessment model — to be applied in class soon. Education answers “what kind of teacher do I want to be”; training answers “what do I need to master this year”.

The differences side by side

Criterion	Teacher education	Teacher training
Scope	Comprehensive: knowing, doing, being	Specific: one skill or tool
Length	Long term, the whole career	Short: hours or weeks
When	Initial (teacher colleges, universities) and continuing	On the job, as needs arise
Goal	Build professional identity and judgment	Solve a concrete classroom need
Examples	Education degree, master’s, long diploma program	Formative assessment course, AI workshop, onboarding
Evidence	Degrees, career path, reflective practice	Classroom application, certificates, micro-credentials

Initial and continuing teacher education

In Mexico, initial teacher education takes place at teacher colleges (escuelas normales), the National Pedagogical University, and schools of education: it is the degree that qualifies someone to teach. Continuing education starts on the first day in front of a class and never ends: courses, workshops, diploma programs, learning communities, and coaching. Teacher training lives inside continuing education; it is its most agile, hands-on part.

Why a good program combines both

Training alone produces teachers with many certificates and little judgment: they know how to use the trendy tool, but not when it makes sense.
Education alone produces valuable reflection that is slow to reach the classroom: the teacher understands the model but has no time to translate it into Monday’s lesson.
Together, education provides the framework and training provides the resources: the teacher knows why and knows how.

How to decide what your faculty needs

Before choosing a course, answer four questions. The answers show whether the problem calls for education (judgment, framework, identity) or training (a specific missing skill).

Does the problem show up in every class or only with one tool? If it is general — for example, assessing only with tests — you need education. If it is specific — teachers cannot use the platform — training is enough.
Do teachers know why the change matters? If they do not share the why, any workshop stays superficial. The framework comes first.
Is there time to practice with a real class? Without practice, neither education nor training reaches the classroom. Set aside hours to apply and get feedback.
How will you verify the change? Define the evidence from the start: an applied rubric, a peer-reviewed lesson plan, a classroom observation.

Examples by education level

Level	Education example	Training example
Preschool and elementary	The New Mexican School approach and community projects	Early literacy workshop with hands-on materials
Middle school	Formative assessment as a school culture	Designing analytic rubrics for projects
High school	Tutoring and social-emotional support	Using artificial intelligence to give feedback on essays
University	Learner-centered teaching for adjunct faculty	Designing a hybrid course in the institutional LMS

What it looks like in practice

An annual professional development program can have one education strand — say, assessment for learning — and several short trainings that bring it down to earth: rubric design, feedback with AI, evidence portfolios. Each training ends with something the teacher applies with their class, and the strand is worked through in learning communities where results are shared.

That is how we design our teacher training and professional development programs: short, hands-on, gamified paths with an AI agent that supports teachers between sessions. If you are building your school’s program, our guide on how to build a teacher training plan will help too.