This article addresses three key concepts, which we consider relevant in relation to the social, economic and cultural requirements imposed on the current education system and process, but also on the need to ensure quality education in the context of societal challenges of postmodernity. Although they have different conceptual and methodological value (the first is part of the category of generic terms, analyzed at the level of education policy, the second - in the category of fundamental pedagogical concepts, of maximum stability, the third being an operational concept, less stable or variable), however, all these three concepts should be, in our opinion, the basis for the design of the training-professional development activity of teachers, given the interrelation and interdependence between their meanings.