This article focalizes the reformulation of the initial formation of elementary education teachers occurring in Brazil since the 1990's. The central elements in this reformulation shows that the process of profissionalization is based on concepts and practices from the field of the work. The notion of competency becomes central in this new idea of education, where are also relevant the curriculum and the organization of the institutions of formation, aiming the construction of a new kind of teacher, with subjective skills according to those demanded for the contemporary capitalist societies. The most recent law, the governmental decree number 1403, from July 9, 2003, constituted the National System of Certification and Continuing Formation of Teachers. This decree extended the process of reformulation in a technical-instrumental perspective, but recently it has been brought to a halt by the new Ministry of Education, under strong pressure from the teachers' movement. The proposals defended by this movement during the last decades - formation with quality, incentive to universities and theirs centers of education as privileged spaces in the formation and intellectual development of teachers - need to be retaken now, in order to be transformed into effective public policies.
formation of teachers; project of profissionalization; logic of competences