This article analyzes Act number 5.692/71, an outcome of one of the most important educational policies of the Brazilian dictatorship (1964/1986): universal and compulsory professionalization at secondary school level. Students, educational administrators and private school entrepreneurs were against that policy and such resistance was openly voiced in 1974, when the worldwide economic crisis and the victory of the opposition party in congressional elections announced the decline of the ruling regime. Within that context, several decisions of the Federal Board of Education (Conselho Federal de Educação) re-construed the wording of the relevant Act and changed its spirit in the sense of diminishing the professional nature of secondary school education.
Educational Policy; Brazilian Dictatorship; Professional Education