This is a study case on an experience of vocational/technical education mostly financed by industrial employers in an area where misqualified personnel were a serious problem. In the first research (1990), technical schools were consolidated, although facing financial difficulty to make investments, and also to keep low tuitions for students interested in technical jobs instead of those interested in higher education. The second research (2005) results showed that the schools had overcome a serious crisis, and that they had also expanded and adopted more rigorous management. In 15 years, the industrial sector has adopted much more capital-intense technologies, having as a result, more qualified and less numerous employees. To answer this new demand and assuring more financial autonomy, the organization established a high school and a school of engineering. Besides sale services, the most recent units contribute to fund the technical schools by a kind of Robin Hood effect.
Vocational & technical education; Educational finance; Educational costs; Educational democratization
