In May 2011, the National Council of Education has established new national curriculum directions for secondary education (NCESE) in Brazil. Considering the multiple views and perspectives from with it is possible to analyze the current policies toward secondary education in the country, this essay pretends to identify what is new in these curriculum directions for the organization of this level of education in Brazil. In the first part of this article, we analyze the context of some major changes of secondary education in the last years, especially in the legislation, access conditions and policies for this level of education. In the next part, we identify the main critics directed to NCESE, approved in 1998, particularly in the researches developed about this issue. Finally, we analyze if the new directions for curriculum in secondary education dialogue with the questions and inquires developed by these researches, which new possibilities of organization the new NCESE provides for this level of education and which challenges continues in debate in the national educational agenda regarding secondary education in Brazil.
secondary education; curriculum; public policies; national curriculum directions