O Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia da Bahia e o PROEJA : o caso do campus de Vitória da Conquista

Abstract

This dissertation is the result of the master s research whose general objective was to investigate the current status of the National Program for Integrating Professional Education with Basic Education in the Modality of Youths and Adults Education PROEJA, at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Bahia IFBA, Campus of Vitória da Conquista, in order to verify the effectiveness of the Program and its scope for the public to which it is intended. Based on studies on education by Marxist theorists, the researcher analyzed data on the history of the Brazilian professional education. Therefore, in order to reach the desired end, one proceeded to the literature review on the history of education in Brazil, to the study of official documents from the implantation of PROEJA, to applying questionnaires and an interview guide with students from the Medium Level Computer Technician Course of this modality, teachers, administrative staff, managers and students from the Specialization Course in PROEJA. The research started from the assumption that the current public policies of youths and adults education have not yet achieved their intent to give access to school and the consequent permanence to a significant percentage of those Brazilians who have not completed the studies within the so-called regular time. Thus, they prove ineffective. The text is structured into five chapters. In the first, there is an overview of the history of the Brazilian professional education in the political, social and economical context of the early twentieth century until the end of the military dictatorship focusing on the populism phenomenon. In the second, public policies of professional education and youths and adults education in the 1990 s are situated. The third chapter deals with the origin of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Bahia IFBA, its evolution and development. Also in this chapter is included the Campus of Vitória da Conquista, the locus of the Program and Course being analyzed. The fourth chapter dealt with exposing the issue around public policies for youths, especially in the educational sector, and their relationship with secondary education. In the last chapter, the fifth, PROEJA is presented as a government program designed to overcome the precarious professional schooling of Brazilian youths and adults. The focus of the research turns, in this chapter, towards the Medium Level Computer Technician Course in PROEJA by IFBA Campus of Vitória da Conquista. Data analysis leads to the realization that, in spite of making some progress, public policies in the education sector, aimed at popular classes, still present in its core the mark of populism that was present for many decades in the twentieth century, which ends up confirming the social inequality imposed by class division for not promoting the universalization of education quality. In the specific case of PROEJA, the Program needs to find its place in the network of federal technical schools and then effect its proposal to provide youths and adults with the professional training integrated to the secondary education able to give them conditions for improving their lives and survival in an increasingly individualistic and competitive society.