The present text intends to discuss the teacher training issues being developed in universities, as well as the meaningful influence in the academic actions brought about by international trends. It stresses that the XXI century greatly emphasized the importance of global context and consequences of "globalization" on education processes in higher education, which can no longer be thought within the limits of national borders. It analyzes the expansion policy of higher education put into practice in the government of President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva from a set of available data in the Education Observatory, specifically in the project Teacher Training Policies and Quality of Basic Education, being developed within the Graduation Program in Education at Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR). The data lead to the conclusion that we are still far from achieving the goals established by the National Education Plan. The 2007 data from the Higher Education Census indicates a gross enrollment ratio of 21.6% of students aged 18 to 24 and a net rate of 12.9% when the target would be to reach 30% by the year 2011. The text also presents the strategic actions that have been developed to minimize the deficits and bring to the debate the challenges presented by scholars and leaders at the World Conference on Higher Education with special emphasis on the role that teacher training takes at the time the higher education paradigm points to the need of going beyond the words.
Higher Education; Teacher Training; Training Policies