Entrepreneurship of Teaching Education for Special Education

ABSTRACT

Entrepreneurship of Teaching Education for Special Education. After the extinction of the Special Education qualification in the Pedagogy Degree course in 2006, the initial teacher training for acting in this modality became available through the Special Education degree. In order to provide an overview of the availability of Higher Education Institutions that offer the mentioned course, documentary analyzes was conducted to show the expansion of this course, mainly in private institutions and in the distance modality as of 2008. The results demonstrate that the expansion of this process is anchored in the discourse of democratizing access to higher education, contributing to consolidate the entrepreneurial process of teacher education to work in Special Education.

Keywords:
Teacher Education; Special Education; Distance Education

RESUMO

Empresariamento da Formação Docente para a Educação Especial. Após a extinção da habilitação em Educação Especial no curso de Licenciatura em Pedagogia no ano de 2006, a formação inicial docente para atuação nessa modalidade passou a ser oferecida por meio da licenciatura em Educação Especial. Com o objetivo de traçar um panorama da disponibilização das Instituições de Ensino Superior que ofertam a referida licenciatura, foram realizadas análises documentais que evidenciam a expansão desse curso, principalmente a partir do ano de 2008, em instituições privadas e na modalidade a distância. Os resultados demonstram que esse processo se a ncora no discurso da democratização do acesso ao ensino superior, contribuindo para consolidar o processo de empresariamento da formação docente para atuação na Educação Especial.

Palavras-chave:
Formação Docente; Educação Especial; Educação a Distância

Introduction

The requirement of higher education for Special Education teachers occurred in the context of the business-military dictatorship, through the qualifications provided for the Teaching Degree in Pedagogy, from the enactment of Law No. 5.540 of November 28, 1968, also known as University Reform. Some authors such as Saviani (2007; 2012), Michels (2017), Libâneo and Pimenta (1999), among others, pointed out that teacher education in this context was reduced to its technical dimension, including for acting in the modality, when teaching specific procedures and resources was prioritized for the development of the so called exceptional students. Some authors, such as Vaz (2013) and Michels (2017) still claim that the qualification in Special Education was structured based on the medical-psychological aspect¹, by instituting the training of specialized teachers by type of disability.

In Brazil, from the 1990s onwards, a series of educational reforms was implemented, based on the guidelines of international multilateral organizations, which proposed the creation of inclusive social and educational policies, which had a strong impact on the scope of teacher education, since education professionals started to be appointed as the main agents of inclusion. With the extinction of the qualifications of the Pedagogy course in 2006, including for Special Education, the initial teacher education to work with the target audience of this type of teaching was under the responsibility of degrees in Special Education and also through postgraduate courses or other proposals for continuing education. However, it should be noted that the two options are now massively offered through private Higher Education Institutions (IES) and, primarily, at a distance.

Thus, the present work initially aims to problematize the main phases that marked teacher education to work in the Special Education modality in Brazil, in order to contribute to the necessary debate on the hegemonic model that has been established in Brazil in this teaching modality. This reflection is linked to the process of entrepreneurship in higher education that has taken place in the country since the Reform of the Brazilian State, in the 1990s, in which there was an approximation of education with market parameters and the concept of education as a social right, present in the 1988 Constitution, was emptied. Subsequently, the results of the document analysis carried out using official data produced/published by the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (INEP) and by the National Register of Courses and Institutions of Higher Education (E-MEC) will be presented.

The data analyzed show that, mainly after the dissemination of the National Policy for Special Education in the Perspective of Inclusive Education (Brasil, 2008), there was a considerable increase in the number of private institutions that started to offer the Teaching Degree in Special Education course in the distance modality. Based on the notes of authors who discuss the expansion of higher education through private institutions that offer distance learning courses, it is understood that the proposals for teacher education for Special Education have been occurring in a fragmented, streamlined and technical way, and, therefore, they are not instruments that aim to contribute to the effective inclusion of these students in the Brazilian educational context.

Technician Pedagogy as a benchmark of teacher education for Special Education in Brazil

Thinking about teacher education to work with students who are the target audience of Special Education requires, albeit briefly, that the insertion of this educational modality in the Teaching Degree in Pedagogy course be rescued. For some decades, this was one of the main spaces for teacher education to work in this school modality. It can be said that, even indirectly, the education of higher education teachers to work with this target audience began in 1969, through the Opinion of the Federal Council of Education (CFE) no. 252/69. This opinion resulted in CFE Resolution No. 2/69, which created the education of teachers for normal education and specialists for specific activities.

In the context of the military dictatorship, the curricular matrix of the Pedagogy course was restructured into two axes of formation: the first, composed of a common base, with the offer of subjects such as Sociology of Education, Psychology of Education, History of Education, among others. The second axis was composed of subjects aimed at specific qualifications, such as educational guidance, school administration and school supervision. Despite the still non-existent discussion on Special Education in these official documents, it is noteworthy that this restructuring of the Pedagogy course made that, later, the educational modality was incorporated as a specific qualification (Saviani, 2007).

It is noteworthy that the documents mentioned above were structured from Law No. 5.540, enacted on November 28, 1968, also known as the University Reform, which, according to Michels (2017, p. 24), “searched to meet the demands of ascension and social prestige of a middle class that supported the 1964 Brazilian coup d’état and demanded a reward”. According to Saviani (2007), the qualifications provided for in CFE Resolution no. 2/69, implemented a year after the reform, aimed at education technicians with supposedly well-defined functions within schools and education systems that would configure a job market also supposedly already well-established, requiring professionals with specific education. The use of the term is supposedly explained by the fact that the functions of the so-called specialists were not well characterized in the corresponding legislation. Thus, based on these questions, the Pedagogy course began to be structured according to the logic of the market, since the education provided in schools should serve its requirements. In this context, the educational issue was reduced to its technical dimension, and, therefore, justified the education of specialists in education through few rules articulated with education for its application in the school environment (Saviani, 2007).

By creating relationships with technical pedagogy, Saviani (2012, p. 12-13) pointed out that one of the characteristics of this aspect was the splitting of pedagogical work based on the specialization of functions, the main element being the

[...] rational organization of the means, with the teacher and the student occupying a secondary position, relegated as executors of a process whose conception, planning, coordination and control are in charge of supposedly qualified, neutral, purpose, impartial specialists.

About these modifications in the Pedagogy course deliberated by CFE Resolution no. 2/69, Libâneo and Pimenta (1999, p. 245) state that there was a huge fragmentation of tasks, pointing out as the main problematic aspects of this type of education.

a) the ‘technicist’ character of the course and the consequent theoretical emptying of education, excluding the character of pedagogy as an investigation of the educational phenomenon; b) the gigantic structure of the curriculum that leads to a fragmented and streamlined curriculum at the same time; c) the excessive fragmentation of tasks within schools; d) the separation in the curriculum between the two blocks, basic pedagogical education and studies corresponding to qualifications.

In this context, the education of teachers to work in Special Education began to be thought of at a higher level. In line with the aforementioned authors, Michels (2017) pointed out that the specialization required of the Special Education teacher was associated with technical rationality and the idea of efficiency and productivity employed in education. In this way, the technicality reached the referred teaching modality through the emphasis on specific techniques and resources for the development of the students then called exceptional. In this regard, teachers in regular classes would receive pedagogical education to work in the classroom, while specialists would focus on the specifics of their areas (Michels, 2017). The author also points out that with the centrality of education specialists in the deficiencies presented by students, the Pedagogy courses “little prepared these professionals to act as teachers” (Michels, 2017, p. 30).

The strong presence of medicine and psychology, based on specific categories of diagnoses² in the delimitation of the subjects of qualifications, removed Special Education from the broader discussions that made up this area. The specific needs of students lose the centrality to educational needs focused on their individual characteristics, being prioritized in the teacher education process, techniques and specific resources, disregarding the analysis of the educational system and its economic, political and social expressions (Michels, 2017), even contributing to the permanence of target audience students of this modality excluded from regular education.

Omote (2003) stated that the legislation determined the education and performance of specialized teachers by area of disability, based on the concept that each one constitutes a specific category. Therefore, it would have peculiar needs of its members, such as specific materials and methodologies, as well as the education of specialized human resources. The author completes by stating that

All of this creates a context that justifies and legitimates the use of a label as if it were a synthesis of everything the person labeled is and can become. This context also justifies and legitimizes the standardization and undifferentiation of treatment - informal in everyday life and ritualized in the form of educational or therapeutic procedures - aimed at people of the same specific category (Omote, 2003, p. 160).

This model reinforced the idea that there would be a standard, a single method, to be followed and taught to the target audience of Special Education students. In the educational field, worldwide, until the 1970s, special modality services were offered to children and young people who were unable to access regular schools or to those who were unable to advance in the schooling process. Therefore, it configures the segregationist character imposed on Special Education, contributing for this modality to be constituted as a parallel system to the general educational system (Mendes, 2006).

The 1990s was a period marked by reforms in Brazilian education through the preparation of official documents, laws, guidelines and decrees, which were based on the recommendations of international Multilateral Organizations (OMs), especially the World Bank, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) and the United Nations Program for Development (PNUD). According to Libâneo (2014), such guidelines aimed to reinforce the concept that education was used as a subsystem of the productive apparatus, in line with corporate corporate interests of linking educational policies to labor productivity.

Triches (2016) pointed out that the reforms implemented since the 1990s, in line with the indications suggested by the World Conference on Education for All, directly affected education and teaching work. The same author stated that the slogan Education for All directed efforts mainly towards basic education, through the predominance of schooling for simple work. The Conference was attended by representatives from 155 countries and, in its article 3, in item 5, it determined that

The basic learning needs of people with disabilities require special attention. Measures must be taken to guarantee equal access to education for people with any type of disability, as an integral part of the education system (Unesco, 1998).

Specifically in Brazil, this declaration started to influence and reinforce the country’s educational policies in favor of the universalization of basic education. However, their ideas were produced by the OMs, which followed a pragmatic view of teaching quality, strongly based on market assumptions. With the influence of neoliberal ideas³ in Brazil, educational policies began to replace the ideal of equality of conditions with that of equality of opportunity. The student became responsible for their school success or failure and just the fact of being in school already appeared as a guarantee for the reduction of social inequalities, covering up the debate about the purpose and low quality of learning that were offered (Pletsch, 2010).

Still about the World Conference on Education for All, Padilha (2014) stated that the document originating from the meeting addressed the issue of the issue of the world’s educational reality. In this document, it was highlighted that it was necessary that the countries aim to jointly combat economic disparities, directing financial and human resources to the educational sphere and that they develop social and economic policies that support educational actions.

Teaching Education for Special Education in the context of inclusive policies

In Brazil, during the 1990s and early 2000s, Special Education services could be provided both in regular schools and in special schools, as well as in non-school environments, such as hospital classes and through home care. In this context, specialized care aimed to support, supplement or replace common educational services. Garcia (2017) points out that such diversification was justified as a way to contemplate a wide variety of needs presented by the heterogeneity of the students of this educational modality.

Specifically on teacher education to work with students who are the target audience of Special Education, Michels (2017) points out that during the 1990s, with the influence of international organizations, the discussion on inclusion became central in Brazil, highlighting if the issue of the inclusion policy, the curricular flexibility, the preparation of the regular school to receive students considered different and, consequently, the need to create techniques and resources that could help in this process. In this context, teacher education to work with this audience also gained prominence, as teachers came to be considered the main agents of the inclusive process of these students in regular education (Michels, 2017).

Vaz and Michels (2017) pointed out that the Law of Guidelines and Bases for National Education (LDBEN) can be considered an important milestone for the education of these teachers, since it established that education systems should ensure that students with special needs are teachers with adequate specialization in secondary or higher education for specialized care, as well as teachers trained to work in regular education, with a view to promoting the integration of these students into regular classes. This regulation established that specialized support should preferably be offered in regular schools, encouraging the enrollment of these students in common educational establishments, despite the continued provision of care in special classes and schools.

Thus, while Special Education was understood in the 1996 LDBEN as an educational modality that would develop a specific work on the deficiencies of target audience students, the Specialized Educational Service (AEE) was configured as a set of resources within a physical space in regular schools, with the function of developing and applying techniques that could help this public adapt to regular education. On this point, Vaz (2013) pointed out that the way in which Special Education started to be exposed in Brazilian legislation could encourage the thought that the teaching modality would be reduced to AEE as a service offered in regular education.

The guidelines of the OMs that strongly influenced the development of educational policies in Brazil, especially from the 1990s onwards, also expressed the need for the development of inclusive social policies. Based on a documentary analysis of the discourses that supported the inclusion policies, Garcia (2017) pointed out that such guidelines were permeated by three discursive nuances: managerial, humanitarian and pedagogical. Regarding the managerial nuance, the author highlighted that she was able to identify such a concept from the speeches that defended changes in the scope of public administration, and, in this context, education came to be affirmed as a service and, therefore, could be offered by the sectors through the establishment of a management contract with the State. The humanitarian nuance, on the other hand, could be perceived from the identification of the use of the concepts of social justice, solidarity and belonging, which, as they were identified as politically correct, were used in order to promote an inclusive and equitable society. Finally, the pedagogical nuance is related to the discourse that the changes that have taken place in society would require the promotion of “learning suited to the new times” (Garcia, 2017, p. 23). In this regard, the political discourses on inclusion started to point out a certain pattern of learning and a profile with the definition of competences for the formation of teachers.

The inclusive proposal gained prominence in Brazilian educational policies through the compulsory inclusion of the Special Education target audience in regular education networks and the implementation of a standard AEE model. Vaz (2013) states that the term inclusion became widely used in official documents aiming at the construction and maintenance of the project of society of the ruling class, being present in debates in the area of education and in Brazilian policies for Special Education from an inclusive perspective, especially from the two terms of the Lula government (2003-2010) and the first term of the Dilma Rousseff government (2011-2014). Borowsky (2010) highlights that the word inclusion came to be used in Brazilian regulations as an opposition to the concept of exclusion, appearing, in many cases, associated with other concepts that describe countless situations of groups historically considered segregated from society. In this context, Special Education came to be considered in educational policies as inclusive education.

In the set of policies implemented at the beginning of the 21st century, at the end of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration, it was suggested that the Special Education teacher should be differentiated from the others in the school, due to the need for specific education, which could be carried out through a degree in Special education⁴, degree in Pedagogy with specialization in Special Education or even through specialization at the Lato sensu postgraduate level in the area. However, the education of teachers in Pedagogy courses underwent a significant change in 2006, with the release of the National Curriculum Guidelines for the Pedagogy Course (DCNP) (Brasil, 2006), which abolished all specific qualifications in undergraduate courses, including qualification in Special Education. Since then, teacher education has been based on three axes: teaching, management and knowledge production. According to Evangelista and Triches (2009), the resolution that regulated the DCNP expresses a conception of instrumental teaching, since the teacher was considered to carry out tasks for which he would not have consistent education. Thus, the expansion of this education would also correspond to an expansion of teaching functions. The authors also highlighted that

Resolution n. 1/2006 expresses the guidelines for a teacher reconversion process that, on the one hand, expands the field of action of the Graduate in Pedagogy, on the other, this expansion of education, lacking theoretical foundation, leads to the uncertainty of their professional profile (Evangelista ; Triches, 2009, p. 1).

In this context, for teachers to be able to train subjects who in the future would predominantly perform simple functions in the labor market, it would be necessary to reconvert their professional profile (Evangelista; Triches, 2009). Reforms in teacher education, in accordance with the demands of capital, required a versatile and flexible professional, being anchored in the theory of human capital. Triches (2016) points out that human work, when qualified through education, would constitute one of the most important means for increasing economic productivity, and, consequently, capital profit. In this regard, applied to the educational sphere, the idea of human capital

[...] it generated a whole technicist conception about teaching and about the organization of education, which ended up mystifying its real objectives. Under the predominance of this technicist view, the idea that education is the presupposition of economic development, as well as the development of the individual, who, when educating himself, would be ‘valuing’ himself, in the same logic, started to be disseminated. in which capital is valued (Triches, 2016, p. 48).

According to Vaz (2013), the Human Capital Theory links education to the country’s economic development project, with the purpose of submitting the educational process to the needs of the market, education subjects for new jobs and linking their education to the productive sector. In this context, the target audience of Special Education students should also be educated to become productive for the capital, and the inclusion of these students in the school environment should “guarantee education that enables the subject to be productive in the society of which he is a part, in addition to that they have conditions, even if minimal, to provide for their livelihood” (Vaz, Michels 2017, p. 64).

Triches (2016) criticized the DCNP when he stated that this education proposal could contribute to the process of intensifying the teaching work, due to the expansion of the functions that a given teacher could have to perform in a working day⁵. This fact would require the availability of multi-purpose professionals, referred to by the author as superteachers, which will act to maintain capitalist relations because these subjects are held responsible for their adaptation to demands and for their professional condition. The same author presents two main faces of super-teaching: on the one hand, the teacher presents himself as a professional who must be resistant at work due to the polyvalent characteristic of teaching, so that he can perform varied, flexible and adaptable functions and tasks. State and market demands; on the other hand, the superteacher is weakened mainly due to his/her fragmented and theoretically empty education, due to the number of topics, subjects and restricted hours (Triches, 2016).

With the extinction of qualifications, the education of teachers to work in Special Education was mainly the responsibility of continuing education, in specialization and postgraduate courses, usually at a distance, enabling professionals trained in different areas to work in the AEE. In this scenario, the education of teachers for the AEE and not specifically for Special Education, was supported by a series of documents produced by the Ministry of Education with guidelines on the development of inclusive education policies, specifically aimed at students target audience of this modality.

New adjustments in Teacher Education for Special Education

With the growing incorporation of the inclusive discourse in Brazilian educational policies, teacher education to work in Special Education has established itself as an important strategy for consolidating the inclusion of students as a target audience of this modality in regular schools. One of the actions to achieve this goal was the launch of the Inclusive Education: Right to Diversity program in 2003, with the main purpose of education teachers in regular schools to work with these students. Vaz (2013, p. 121) states that this program was constituted as a “strategy for convincing and disseminating the school inclusion policy, in counterpoint to the segregation and discrimination present in schools”.

Borowsky (2010) when analyzing the guidelines of the Teacher Improvement Course for Specialized Educational Service, offered by the Ministry of Education and which constitutes an action among those provided for in the Inclusive Education Program; right to diversity, indicates that continuing education courses are guided by a practical, instrumental and technical perspective, as there is a great focus on methods, instruments and work techniques in the AEE, reducing the teacher’s work to practical functions. The first edition of the course took place in 2007, with a software being developed by the Ministry of Education, allowing the course to have around 87% of its workload organized in the distance mode. That same year, the document was released Specialized Educational Service - General Guidelines and Distance Education which pointed out some benefits in relation to Distance Education (EaD), such as offering education for a greater number of people, regardless of the physical space; covering a large territorial extension and offering the possibility for teachers and students to plan their study routine in harmony with their private activities. However, the dissemination of education to as many people as possible produces, as one of its main consequences, a streamlined and precarious education (Vaz, 2013).

In this regard, Borowsky (2010) points out that the policies for Special Education and for teacher education in this area express the contradictions that permeate the State and the capitalist system, since such policies materialize mainly through continuing education, carried out during the service “which ensures savings of time and money to the State, and in the distance modality, under the discourse of the democratization of education, offering a fast education and with lower costs to thousands of teachers in the country” (Borowsky, 2010, p. 17). In agreement with this statement, Vaz (2013, p. 132) states that the education of teachers for Special Education is based on the current that aims to “train these professionals quickly and cheaply for the State”. This current is consolidated as a strategy for carrying out the school inclusion policy that prioritizes continuing and in-service education to work in the AEE.

As a result of the extinction of qualifications, it was up to the degree courses in Special Education the possibility of initial education of these professionals. Thus, the education of specialized teachers in this field to work both at school and in spaces provided for Special Education was reinforced, having as a guide the medical-psychological model, by focusing the concern on the diagnosis of deficiencies. Thus, the precariousness of education makes it an action with no pedagogical return due to its superficial character, as it is directed towards the technical knowledge of deficiencies, eliminating the theoretical character that would allow reflection on the processes experienced at school (Vaz, 2013).

Thus, in order to provide an overview of Higher Education Institutions (IES) that offer the Teaching Degree in Special Education in Brazil, as well as to identify the number of enrollments carried out in these institutions, instruments were selected for data collection, the National Register of Higher Education Courses and Institutions/E-MEC and the Statistical Synopsis of Higher Education - Graduation published by the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (INEP).

To identify the IES, the “Advanced Query” resource available on the E-MEC website was used⁶, selecting the option “Graduation Course” and then using the descriptor “Special Education” in the option “Course”. The option “Under activity” was also selected in the item “Situation” to search for IES that were active at the time of the search, disregarding the results that indicated the suspension of operation of the Teaching Degree in Special Education course or the “Not started” status.

Thus, as a first action, a consultation was carried out on March 19, 2020 on the E-MEC website, being found 28 undergraduate courses in Licentiate in Special Education currently in activity, distributed as follows:

The data referring to enrollments carried out in public IES represent the sum of the figures reported in the federal, state, and, municipal categories. The data related to private IES were broken down into private and community/confessional/philanthropic categories. It is also worth noting that the enrollments presented in Table 1 represent data collected both from institutions that work face-to-face and from a distance. When analyzing this information, it is possible to verify that in 2007, the number of enrollments in public and private IES was equal, however, there is a significant expansion in the number of enrollments in private educational institutions comparing the years 2007 and 2018. considerably smaller increase among public IES. A sharp discrepancy is still identified between the numbers that represent enrollments in public IES in relation to private IES. This difference can also be identified by comparing the enrollment numbers in on-site teaching IES and in distance learning IES:

Table 1
Institutions offering a Degree in Special Education in the face-to-face modalit

In-person
Institution	State	Region	Administrative Category
1. Faculdade de Desenvolvimento do Norte	MG	Southeast	Private
2. Faculdade Verde Norte	MG	Southeast	Private
3. Instituto Superior de Educação Ibituruna	MG	Southeast	Private
4. Centro Universitário para o Desenvolvimento do Alto Vale do Itajaí	SC	South	Private, but nonprofit
5. Universidade do Contestado	SC	South	Private, but nonprofit
6. Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina	SC	South	Private, but nonprofit
7. Universidade Federal de São Carlos	SP	Southeast	Public/Federal
8. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria	RS	South	Public/Federal
9. Universidade Regional de Blumenau	SC	South	Public/Municipal

• Source: Own elaboration based on data available on the website https://emec.mec.gov.br/.

When analyzing the data presented, it is possible to affirm that about 67% of the institutions that offer the Teaching Degree in Special Education course in the face-to-face modality are private, with or without profit, and 33% are public. Below, the data regarding the institutions that offer this course in the distance mode in Brazil will be presented:

Table 2 Institutions offering a Degree in Special Education in the distance modality

Distance modality
Institution	State	Region	Administrative Category
1. Centro Universitário Cidade Verde	PR	South	Private
2. Centro Universitário Claretiano	SP	Southeast	Private, but nonprofit
3. Centro Universitário da Serra Gaúcha	RS	South	Private
4. Centro Universitário de Excelência Eniac	SP	Southeast	Private
5. Cent ro Universitá rio de Jag ua riúna	SP	Southea st	Pr ivate
6. Centro Universitário Facvest	SC	South	Private
7. Centro Universitário Faveni	SP	Southeast	Private
8. Centro Universitário Internacional	PR	South	Private
9. Centro Universitário Leonardo Da Vinci	SC	South	Private
10. Centro Universitário São Lucas	RO	North	Private
11. Faculdade de Ciências, Educação, Saúde, Pesquisa e Gestão	RJ	Southeast	Private
12. Universidade Cidade de São Paulo	SP	Southeast	Private
13. Universidade Cruzeiro do Sul	SP	Southeast	Private
14. Universidade de Franca	SP	Southeast	Private
15. Universidade de Taubaté	SP	Southeast	Public/Municipal
16. Universidade do Contestado	SC	South	Private, but nonprofit
17. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria	RS	South	Public/Federal
18. Universidade Metropolitana de Santos	SP	Southeast	Private, but nonprofit
19. Universidade Santa Cecília	SP	Southeast	Private, but nonprofit

Source: Own elaboration based on data available on the website https://emec.mec.gov.br/.

It should be noted that among the institutions that offer the course, both in-person and at a distance, only the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), the Regional University of Blumenau (FURB) and the University of Taubaté (UNITAU) are public. Based on the analysis of the tables presented, it is possible to identify that, for the most part, the current offer of the Teaching Degree in Special Education is concentrated in private institutions, in the distance modality, located in the southern regions and, mainly, in the southeast of the country. This last phenomenon mentioned is called by Ristoff (2008, p. 43) as “south transformation of higher education”, demonstrating the existence of a great regional imbalance in the availability of IES in the country. This fact also points out that the approach to expanding access made possible by the expansion of IES in Brazil must also consider regional inequality. When analyzing the data presented in the Statistical Synopsis of Higher Education - Graduation published by INEP, in 2018, 2,537 IES were recognized, among public and private throughout the national territory, and only the Southeast region is responsible for providing 1,126 IES, that is, approximately 44% of institutions across the country (Brasil, 2018).

On the expansion of higher education in Brazil, Borges (2015, p. 260) highlights that, driven mainly by the Partido dos Trabalhadores governments, this phenomenon occurred, primarily in private institutions, through a process of disordered growth, to the detriment of quality, since “many schools were created without specialized and qualified teaching staff, without the minimum infrastructure necessary for their functioning and, still, with restricted access to a layer of the population”.

It should be noted that, with the exception of the UFSM, which was created in the 1980s, it could still be verified by consulting the EMEC that the Special Education Licentiate courses in all other IES were created from 2008 onwards. In an analysis of the Pedagogical Political Project of the Teaching Degree in Special Education at UFSCar, it is possible to find a series of justifications on the need for the existence of teacher education courses to work in this modality, since

[...] if the opportunities for education at a higher level at the undergraduate level are already scarce, they are even more funneling in the scope of postgraduate studies [...] this level would enhance both a better qualification of the professional in relation to the secondary level, as well as an expansion in education opportunities, compared to the requirement of the level of specialization (Ufscar, 2012, p. 9).

In the same analyzed document, it is also mentioned that, given the extinction of special education qualifications in Pedagogy courses, the only possible solution for the future of teacher education to work in this modality would be the abandonment of hybrid education, both for regular education and for the and the adoption of a proposal for an exclusive and specific degree in Special Education (Ufscar, 2012). Specifically with regard to the degree in Special Education, Vaz (2013) criticizes the course as he proposes a differentiation between professionals who will be able to work in the classroom regularly or exclusively with students who are the target audience of the modality.

According to the author, this professional dichotomy would be at least contradictory, since the official documents already indicated the inclusion of Special Education students preferably in the regular scope of teaching and, in this case, teachers who worked in regular classes should also act with this student. The author continues his criticism stating that for these teachers, education would also be necessary to work together with this audience and that education with a solid pedagogical basis would be essential for those who would work exclusively with Special Education students (Vaz, 2013).

Regarding the time frame for the implementation of Teaching Degree courses in Special Education in Brazilian IES, two points need to be discussed: as mentioned above, in 2006, the qualification in Special Education in Teaching Degree courses in Pedagogy was abolished; and, in 2008, the National Policy for Special Education from the Perspective of Inclusive Education (PNEEPEI) was launched. Regarding the first point, it is identified that the extinction of qualifications in the Teaching Degree in Pedagogy course boosted the creation of Degrees in Special Education, primarily in private IES, as can be seen in the tables previously presented. Regarding the second, PNEEPEI presents the inclusive proposal as a new paradigm for Special Education. The said policy aims to

[...] access, participation and learning of students with disabilities, pervasive developmental disorders and high abilities/giftedness in mainstream schools, guiding education systems to promote responses to special educational needs, ensuring: [...] teacher education for specialized educational service and other education professionals for school inclusion (Brasil, 2008, p. 8).

From the delimitation in PNEEPEI on the need for teacher education to work specifically in the modality, a significant increase of institutions is identified that started to offer the Degree in Special Education, as the only alternative for initial education of teachers who aimed to work in this modality of teaching, since the qualifications for the Teaching Degree in Pedagogy had already been abolished.

In order to identify the number of enrollments made in Special Education Licentiate courses, in public and private IES that operate in the face-to-face and distance modalities, and to compare the data on enrollment in that course before and after 10 years of dissemination of the policy, the Statistical Synopsis of Higher Education - Graduation⁷ corres ponding to the years 2007 and 2018 were consulted. After analyzing the data, the following results were found:

Chart 1 Comparison of the number of enrollments in Special Education graduation by administrative category

Year	2007	2018	Growth rates
Enrollment
Public IES	271	640	136%
Private IES	283	9,573	3,282%

Source: Own elaboration based on data collected in Statistical Synopsis of Higher Education – Undergraduate/INEP.

Chart 2 Comparison of the number of enrollments in special education graduation by teaching modality

Year	2007	2018	Growth rates
Enrollment
In-person	444	471	6%
Distance learning	110	9,742	8,756%

Source: Own elaboration based on data collected in Statistical Synopsis of Higher Education – Undergraduate/INEP.

The data presented above represent the sum of the enrollment numbers of public and private institutions, divided between the on-site and distance modalities. A relevant data that needs analysis concerns the fact that, both in the tables and in the table presented above, it appears that the availability of institutions/enrollments in the Teaching Degree in Special Education course in public IES of on-site teaching is considerably lower than the than in private distance learning IES. Thus, there is a significant increase in the number of enrollments in that course in private distance learning institutions, comparing 2007, before the release of PNEEPEI, and 2018, 10 years after the release of PNEEPEI.

It is understood that from the need to train a larger contingent of teachers to work in Special Education, especially after the dissemination of PNEEPEI, EaD became an alternative to replace classroom courses. Malanchen (2007, p. 61) points out that some authors argue that the formation of a new worker profile is necessary to meet the new demands of the labor market and, in this regard, through the offer of courses in the distance modality, it becomes if possible that “millions of excluded people can be included in society and thus, a more democratic society can be achieved”. However, the author problematizes that in the capitalist mode of production, all forms of inclusion are subordinated to meet their own demands. In this regard, the authors who use the EaD discourse as a possibility to guarantee justice and social inclusion, largely rely on the guidelines of the OMs that deal with the need to implement inclusive policies (Malanchen, 2007) as mentioned above.

Such alternatives proposed for teacher education are anchored in the idea of the need to streamline education and the constitution of an educational market focused on teacher education, “with a view to reaching the maximum number of teachers in the most economically viable way, following the logic of the project social hegemonic” (Vaz, 2013, p. 131). Still regarding the analysis of existing data in the E-MEC, it should be noted that most of the IES that offer a degree in Special Education are of a private and distance learning nature. Seki, Souza and Evangelista (2017) point out that teacher education via private education institutions is sold as an opportunity for a future that will feature structural unemployment perpetrated by capitalist relations of production, with this process being initiated, according to the authors, from the 1990s and intensified in the 2000s.

Thus, the shift of teacher education from the public to the private sphere was linked to the interests of the hegemonic class fractions, since the deregulation of Brazilian higher education created ample conditions for the expansion of the private sector in the educational offer. The encouragement of entrepreneurship in higher education, from the 1990s onwards, strengthened the fractions of the bourgeoisie in the service sector, which began to guide current educational policies, seeking to consolidate their interests. During this period, “[…] the State began to adopt privatization strategies at this level of education: transforming public education into non-state public education and encouraging ‘entrepreneurship’ in this education system” (Neves; Fernandes, 2002, p. 29). The term entrepreneurship, used here, refers to the set of companies that start to offer higher education as a service (Neves; Fernandes, 2002).

In this context, undergraduate courses, considered to be of lower cost compared to those that require a greater structure, ended up appearing as “true enrollment machines, especially for large private schools, that is, private institutions” (Seki; Souza; Evangelista, 2017, p. 459). This context was also contemplated with the creation of policies that boosted the expansion of enrollments in private IES, such as the Student Financing Fund (FIES) and the University for All Program (PROUNI), contributing to the deepening of the process, called by the authors, of “financialization of teacher education” (Seki, Souza, Evangelista, 2017, p. 453).

It is necessary to highlight that the OMs and the State elected education as the “magic key” for inclusion and social justice, and, in this regard, according to Malanchen (2007), the discourse disseminated by educational policies is that, through the democratization of education via distance education, it becomes possible for everyone to have access to higher education, which supposedly would be configured as a strategy for the realization of a fairer and more democratic society. However, the interest in democratizing access to education creates an illusion that everyone can improve their lives, but, in fact, the intention behind this discourse is to train a technically capable, creative, efficient and adaptable workforce (Malanchen, 2007).

Based on the above, it is possible to apprehend that the means offered for the education of teachers who will work with Special Education students have contributed to the maintenance of the hegemonic education project, as it aims to train technical, flexible and versatile professionals who they should act aiming at the adaptation of these subjects in the school context and, consequently, in the productive system. Thus, it is noteworthy that the current option for initial education of specialists to work in this modality are the degree courses in Special Education. These have been made available, substantially, in private and distance IES, which, according to Malanchen (2007, p. 220), leads “to education that, under the banner of democratization of knowledge, intends to withdraw from them the ability to think”. Therefore, it is understood that teacher education to work in Special Education must be restructured to train teachers who are critical and committed to the transformation of the current school reality, thus also interfering in the process of effecting the actual inclusion of students who are the target audience of Special Education in the educational field.

Conclusion

Historically, teacher education for Special Education was mainly linked to Pedagogy courses, through the offer of qualification of this modality in that course. However, as can be briefly presented, some authors classify that the creation of qualifications, including Special Education, was developed based on technical rationality when establishing the need to divide up the teaching work. This was intended to meet the new professional requirements imposed by the market, in which the school should train individuals for the production process. From the guidelines of international Multilateral Organizations on the need to establish inclusive social and educational policies, education gained centrality as one of the main ways of making such inclusion.

However, under the guidance of these same guidelines that understood education as a service, the creation of private educational institutions was mainly driven from the 2000s onwards. Following this direction, with the extinction of the qualifications of the Teaching Degree in Pedagogy in 2006, it is clear that the locus of teacher education to work in Special Education is aimed at postgraduate courses and degrees in Special Education. From the analysis of official data in relation to Brazilian higher education, it was possible to identify, mainly from the year 2008, the considerable expansion of IES and enrollments in Teaching Degree courses in Special Education in private institutions and in the distance modality.

In parallel to the new demands of the labor market, it was possible to identify through a literature review that such courses were structured in a practical, instrumental and technical way, meeting the requirements of the ruling class. With regard to those offered in the distance modality, it is highlighted that the discourse of democratization of access masks the real strategy of the State to reduce costs and time by shifting the responsibility for teacher education from public to private institutions. On the other hand, it aims to strengthen business in the educational sector, which has acquired an important central role in educational policies in this context. Thus, it is understood that these issues need to be broadly discussed and problematized, since the schooling of students target audience of Special Education must also occur in the regular scope of education and, therefore, the provision of specialized education, in a streamlined and precarious, will not contribute to the effective inclusion of these students in the educational process.

Notes

• 1
  Also in the period of the Modern Age, the individual medical model of disability emerged, consisting of a set of assumptions and knowledge arising from the Health Sciences, which began to treat disability as a deviation from what could be considered normal, according to bio-physiological standards. From then onwards, disability acquired a status of failure, limitation and incapacity, being explained in the following centuries according to the guidelines of biology, industry, statistics and medicine, thus emerging the disabled individual (Piccolo, 2012).
• 2
  The Pedagogy courses that started to offer specific qualification for Special Education did so through qualification in Special Education or through four specific areas: Audiocommunication Deficiency ― or Hearing Impairment ―; Physical Disability; Mental Disability and Visual Disability (Michels, 2017, p. 33).
• 3
  Since the late 1980s, the term neoliberalism has been used to refer to a new type of state action, a new configuration of the economy and a new type of political and economic thinking. Among its main characteristics, the privatization of state-owned companies, the deregulation of markets (labor and financial), and the transfer of growing portions of the provision of social services to the private sector stand out (Galvão, 2008).
• 4
  In the 1980s, the Teaching Degree in Special Education course became an option for education Special Education teachers, initially relying on qualifications in mental and audio-communication disabilities (Michels, 2017).
• 5
  According to the Resolution of the National Council of Education/Full Council n. 1/2006, the student who graduated in the Pedagogy course could act as a teacher in: Early Childhood Education, in the early years of Elementary School, in normal courses and in High School Professional Education, in Special Education, in Youth and Adult Education, and in Indigenous and Quilombola Education; as a manager, in the area of specialists, in educational guidance or supervision and, finally, as a researcher in other areas in which pedagogical knowledge is expected (Brasil, 2006).
• 6
  Available at: https://emec.mec.gov.br/.
• 7
  The collected data are available in the items: 5.2 - Enrollments in On-Campus Undergraduate Courses (2007); 7.1 - Enrollments and Graduates in Undergraduate Distance Learning Courses (2007); 5.2 - Enrollment in On-Campus Undergraduate Courses (2018); 7.6 - Enrollment of Undergraduate Distance Learning Courses (2018).

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Edited by

Editor-in-Charge: Carla Vasques

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  23 Mar 2022
• Date of issue
  2022

History

• Received
  09 Oct 2020
• Accepted
  18 May 2021