The implementation of pronatec and the implications on the professional education policy: what is prescribed and what is implemented^*

Abstract

The study refers to the implementation of the National Program for Access to Technical Education and Employment (Pronatec), enacted by Law 12.513/2011, with the objective of expanding and taking professional and technological education policy to the interior of the country, stimulating the articulation of this policy with employment generation policies and amplifying educational policies for workers. Another goal of the program is to improve the quality of high school. In order to achieve these objectives, Pronatec offers Initial and Continuing Education Courses (FIC) and concomitant technical courses. To investigate the fulfillment of the objectives of the program and elucidate the implications of its implementation, an evaluation of the process was developed through the analysis of data from 2011 to 2017. Considering this period, it was observed that Pronatec’s trajectory can be divided into three moments: in the first moment, from the creation of the program, in 2011, to the 2014 presidential election, there is a significant offering of FIC courses and a contribution to the legitimization of the capitalist state; in the second, from the reelection of president Dilma Vana Rousseff to her impeachment (2015-2016), there is a decline in Pronatec’s course openings; in the third moment, from 2017 on, technical courses are emphasized as a foundation for the implementation of the High School Reform. At this moment, it is observed that the state has been greatly contributing to the capitalist accumulation. Therefore, the structural duality of education is consolidated in the current trajectory of the program.

Professional education; Qualification; Pronatec; Trajectory; Evaluation

Resumo

O estudo se refere à implementação do Programa Nacional de Acesso ao Ensino Técnico e ao Emprego (Pronatec), criado pela Lei n° 12.513/2011, com os objetivos declarados de expandir e interiorizar a política de educação profissional e tecnológica, estimular a articulação dessa política com as políticas de geração de emprego e ampliar as oportunidades educacionais dos trabalhadores. O programa também se propôs a melhorar a qualidade do ensino médio. Para cumprir esses objetivos, o Pronatec oferta cursos de formação inicial e continuada de trabalhadores (FIC) e cursos técnicos concomitantes. Para investigar o cumprimento dos objetivos do programa e elucidar as implicações dessa implementação, desenvolveu-se uma avaliação de processo com dados de 2011 a 2017. Constatou-se, no recorte temporal investigado, a trajetória do Pronatec em três momentos: o primeiro, que vai da criação do programa em 2011 às eleições presidenciais de 2014, no qual se destaca a significativa ampliação da oferta e a contribuição à função de legitimação do Estado capitalista com a oferta majoritária dos cursos FIC; o segundo concretizado após a reeleição da presidenta Dilma Vana Rousseff até o impeachment (2015-2016), em que se percebe o declínio na oferta do programa; e o terceiro momento, a partir de 2017, em que a ênfase se coloca nos cursos técnicos como base para a implementação da Reforma do Ensino médio. Nesse momento, observa-se que o Estado vem contribuindo sobremaneira para a acumulação capitalista. Assim, consolida-se um maior acirramento da dualidade estrutural da educação na trajetória atual do programa.

Educação profissional; Qualificação; Pronatec; Trajetória; Avaliação

Introduction

The problem that permeates the study has as its starting point the historical duality that marks the Brazilian educational policy, considering that the state has offered different education models depending on the group it was aimed at, namely: technical-instrumental education for the working class children, to guarantee their survival and also to meet capital’s urgency for cheap labor force, and propaedeutic basic education for Brazilian elite children, aiming at the continuity of higher education to, later, occupy the positions of orientation and direction of society.

This duality is an inherent manifestation of the capitalist mode of production and it is in this sense that we highlight the role of education for the economic development (RAMOS, 2004). Throughout the history of Brazilian education, this duality remains with more or less intensity, depending on the correlation of forces in dispute in society.

In addition to these aspects, another disturbing point problematized in the research is the way the capitalist state is focused on public policies aimed at the legitimation, ensuring some compensatory services to the poorest working class to maintain its popularity at the expense of policies that would effectively meet their needs and their social emancipation. These concerns are part of Souza’s (2009) analysis on O’Connor’s (1977) studies, which emphasize two functions of the capitalist state, namely: accumulation (to maintain and create conditions for the development of private companies) and legitimation (intrinsically ideological and aimed at maintaining social harmony). In this sense, along Pronatec’s implementation, we observe its contribution to fulfill both functions.

Considering this issue, the implementation of Pronatec, enacted by Law 12.513/2011, represents a concern. The program proposes the expansion of professional education through Initial and Continuing Education Courses (FIC) for workers, besides concomitant high school course, therefore, reinforcing the separation between propaedeutic and professional education.

The analysis of the content of official documents, showed that the structure set up for the implementation of Pronatec tends to replace openings in the professional education policy (such as Proeja² and the high school integrated to secondary level technical professional education) that, to a certain extent, meet the historical demands of the working class. It is precisely in this sense that the research, whose results are presented in this article, was built. Its goal is to analyze the implementation of Pronatec, seeking to understand the changes in the professional education policy resulting from this program.

The relevance of this study consists of considering that Brazilian education, just as other public policies, is permeated by class struggles and interest disputes (DOURADO, 2011). Thus, it is necessary to evaluate public policies, and in this specific case, the program, checking if what was proposed initially was achieved and how. Besides that, we analyzed the social and political consequences, that is, the social and political implications of having (or not) achieved what was intended as an official goal of the program. Therefore, we understand that the evaluation of Pronatec’s implementation contributes to an in-depth analysis of the program as a way of broadening the debate on the structural duality of the Brazilian education.

The article is organized in three parts besides this introduction. In the second part, we present the theoretical-methodological framework of the research. Next, we discuss the three moments of Pronatec: its vertiginous expansion, from 2011 to 2014; the reduction of openings from 2015 to 2016; the trend to change the courses from short-term courses to technical courses, from 2017 on. Finally, we make our considerations regarding the theme addressed.

Theoretical and methodological framework

In developing the research, we predominantly used three types of literature: methodologically, we based the research on the Marxist dialectical method; theoretically, we associated Pronatec to public policies, particularly to professional education policies and, considering that the research was developed between 2016 and 2019, we also used academic literature that focuses on high school due to the reform that has been affecting this educational level since 2016 and to its relation with Pronatec. In addition, we used theoretical foundation of process evaluation in the context of public policies as we intend to evaluate Pronatec during its execution.

According to Costa and Castanhar (2003), process evaluation requires the design of the program flows and processes, which also brings us back to the trajectory of the implementation of Pronatec. These authors cite Scheirer (1994) as saying that process evaluation “can be defined as a way of identifying the real content of a public program, if it is being carried out as planned”. Scheirer (1994) affirms the need, in process evaluation, to develop methods to understand the existence of differences between the objectives (and intentions) of the program and what is, in fact, accomplished.

Therefore, in the research, we directed the process evaluation to the program trajectory, using Bourdieu’s (1998) trajectory concept and also based on Lukacs (2003), mainly when the author affirms that the central problem of the dialectic method is the transformation of reality and also when he highlights history in the subject-object relationship.

In this sense, we do not seek to interpret Pronatec’s trajectory as a coherent set of actions executed as previously planned, but as something that moves within the social space (BOURDIEU, 1998), having unpredictable variations that come from changes in the social and political context throughout the implementation of the program. Therefore, based on the dialectical method, we understand that the trajectory of a public policy is full of contradictions (HARVEY, 2016). In addition, the trajectory crosses several moments (not stages or phases) and requires criteria and methodological parameters for the definition of these historical moments. The initial step of these parameters are the foundations of Pronatec, in the quest to identify its true content and confront whether the program is being carried out as officially planned (SCHEIRER, 1994).

Alongside the search to understand Pronatec’s trajectory, the other level of analysis of the evaluation that we have referred to evaluates the achievements of the program’s goals, as we understand that it is not enough to check whether these objectives were achieved. It is also important to value the social and political consequences of this movement. In other words, we intend to go beyond the content evaluation of its documents, seeking to understand the meaning of the activities implemented or that are being implemented.

As data source of the research, especially concerning the construction of the organizational, social-political and ideological structure, we analyzed the official documents of the program (laws, ordinances, resolutions, decrees).

In addition to these documents, since it is an evaluation of the implementation of Pronatec, we had access to data on enrollment, provider institutions, courses offered and financial resources required through the Portal of the Electronic System of Citizen Information Service (ESIC) and the office of Comptroller General (CGU). Moreover, the reply to the request at ESIC directed us to the Ministry of Education’s (MEC) electronic panel (painel.mec.gov.br), in which information on a variety of educational programs and actions are available, including Pronatec. The response also indicated the access to the National Information System for Professional and Technological Education (Sistec), whose public consultation module (http://sistec.mec.gov.br/consultapublicaunidadeensino/) has information on educational institutions and the courses offered by Pronatec. We also used as data sources the reports from the National Service for Industrial Training (Senai) from 2011 to 2015 and audits about the program carried out by the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU).

The trajectory of Pronatec’s implementation: three moments

In this section, we are going to present the central aspects of Pronatec’s trajectory in three subsections, each of them related to a moment of the program. It is important to highlight that the trajectory of a program or public policy is not linear, but permeated by contradictions. Therefore, we want to make it clear that the characteristics of a specific moment can be identified in another moment.

Regarding the classification of Pronatec’s moments of implementation, the main parameters used refer to the modality of the courses offered, enrollment, education provider institutions and the modifications in the implementation of the program resulting from the political, social and economic context. Therefore, Pronatec’s moments we categorized in the period from 2011 to 2017, as follows.

From 2011 to 2014: from the Implementation to President Dilma’s reelection

The year 2011 marks the beginning of Pronatec’s trajectory, with its foundation on October 26, enacted by Law12.513/2011, with then President Dilma Rousseff announcing as a goal the offering of 8 million openings, according to an interview in the radio program “Café com a Presidenta”³ [Coffee with the President]:

[…] The National Program for Access to Technical Education and Employment (Pronatec), is the largest professional education reform made in Brazil. An investment of R$ 24 billion will be made to offer technical and professional education for high school students of our public schools and workers. There will be 5.6 million openings for short courses aimed at the professional qualification of workers and 2.4 million openings for technical courses for high school students with a duration of at least one year. We are building 208 new units of Professional Education Federal Institutes [Federal Institutes of Education, Science and Technology], 35 of which will be ready this year. We are also making a partnership with the S System –Senai and Senac–, which, this year alone, will expand the offer of free professional courses with 630 thousand openings. In addition, we invested R$ 1.7 billion in the construction of 176 state technical schools, and also in the renovation, expansion and purchase of equipment for 543 units. Pronatec will also finance technical courses in private professional education schools as it already does with higher education through the Higher Education Brazilian Student Loan Fund (Fies). Besides that, Luciano, with Pronatec, the company’s investments in professional education will not be taxed. (BRASIL, 2011).

This speech shows many points of the organizational, political, social and ideological structure of Pronatec, mainly regarding the public-private partnership, the major offer of FIC courses and also the expansion of private professional education initiatives. The discourse shows an economic perspective of the so called “major professional education reform”, highlighted previously.

Simultaneously, the creation of 208 new units of education, science and technology federal institutes was announced, revealing the wish to conciliate the public and private sector interests, a characteristic of the neo-developmentalism (ALVES, 2015).

According to a document of the Ministry of Finance⁴, between October 2011 and May 2014, 158 technical courses and 638 FIC courses were offered and distributed in twelve technological axes: environment and health, industrial control and processes, educational and social development, management and businesses, information and communication, infrastructure, food production, design and cultural production, industrial production, natural resources, security and tourism, hospitality and leisure.

A document published by the Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS), through the Secretariat of Evaluation and Information Management (SAGI)⁵, shows that the program could offer courses for the poorer, the so called groups with precarious insertion in the labor market: 63 per cent of the people enrolled were part of the Unified Registry, a Brazilian government tool for identification and socioeconomic characterization of low-income families. Such document from MDS, entitled Pronatec Evaluation: aspects related to the efficiency, efficacy and effectivity of the program between 2011 and 2014, presents a managerialist evaluation conception, with a neoliberal bias, in which the main focus was to expose quantitative data regarding the number of enrollments to demonstrate the efficiency of Pronatec’s openings. This document does not mention the results of the program in terms of changes in real life condition of the students who participated in the courses, nor it provides data regarding the conclusion of the courses. Moreover, it reinforces the neoliberal ideology when it highlights Pronatec’s openings to the beneficiaries of the Family Allowance Program (PBF), since the data that supposedly attest the “success” of the program refer exclusively to the quantity of enrollments offered, aiming at legitimating the government through social programs.

However, despite the MDS document, announcing the efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness of the program, the total quantity of enrollments was 2.8 million, which contradicts many other documents from MEC, which announced that the quantity of enrollments in this period was 8.1 million. This inconsistency in the information presented by both ministries, regarding the number of enrollments is related to the inconsistency that it met the goal of training 8 million workers through the program. To reach the figure of more than 8 million enrollments, MEC considered all the openings of professional education and not only the courses offered through the Pronatec Training Grant⁶. That is, all the openings of the centennial Federal Education Network of Scientific and Technological Professional Education (RFECPT), the Free of Charge Agreement of the S System and the Brazil Professionalized Program, all prior to Pronatec, were accounted as openings resulting from this program as we can see in Table 1.

Table 1
Quantity of Pronatec enrollments

Year	Free of charge system S	Education grant	Professionalized Brazil	E-tec	Expansion of Federal Network	Total
2011	494,928	23,180	83,370	37,089	138,370	776,937
2012	620,960	677,830	90,634	73,425	146,351	1,609,200
2013	703,458	1,660,261	93,799	115,166	133,550	2,706,234
2014	775,548	1,921,115	94,690	66,150	131,381	2,988,884
2015	534,454	297,282	81,500	100,614	138,008	1,151,858
2016	123,419	2,183	42,518	9,058	92,772	269,950
TOTAL GENERAL	3,252,767	4,581,851	486,511	401,502	780,432	9,503,06

Source: Elaborated by the authors from data available at http://painel.mec.gov.br/.

In addition to this inconsistency on the way of presenting Pronatec’s enrollment data, we highlight that in the period between 2011 and 2014, the greatest effort of the program was aimed at the Initial and Continuing Training of workers (FIC), corresponding to 72 per cent of the total of enrollments.

Thus, we infer that by concentrating the largest supply of FIC courses in the period between 2011- 2014, the government aimed at contributing mainly to its own popularity, since these courses do not have much insertion in the work market. With respect to employability, a research carried out by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV-2010)⁷ concluded that the effect of these short courses⁸ is, in general, low and in the “case of the informatic courses, the effect is negative, with 14.1 per cent chances in relation to those who have never attended them” (NERI, 2010, p. 23).

Therefore, the purpose of the large-scale offering of FIC courses aimed at the poorer working class is predominantly related to the legitimation of the capitalist state, since it has no significance regarding the (re)insertion of workers in the so called work market, but contributes to social cohesion. However, the population supports it because it understands that the government is providing access to professional qualification to a public that had previously had this opportunity, favoring the population evaluation of the candidate Dilma Rousseff for reelection in the October 2014 election.

Likewise, the audit done by the TCU, in 2016, and the study carried out by the Ministry of Finance also demonstrated that FIC courses offered by Pronatec had little contribution to workers’ insertion in the work market.

To evaluate the relation between course openings and the work market, TCU confronted Pronatec’s openings with formal occupations that generate the most jobs in the work market. Through this analysis, TCU concluded that there are municipalities with a great mismatch between the courses offered and the dynamics of the local work market. Therefore, courses are offered in occupations that are in “low stock and/or in low hiring rate” (BRASIL, 2016, p. 151).

The Ministry of Finance also conducted a study about the insertion of Pronatec’s graduates with scholarship in the work market. The study analyzed the trajectory of 160 thousand people that lost their jobs in 2011 and evaluated their professional reinsertion, in the period between 2012 and 2013, comparing those who had attended any Pronatec course in the FIC modality (treatment group), in relation to the workers who had enrolled, but had not had their enrollment confirmed in the program (control group). The study developed by Barbosa Filho, Porto, Delfino (2015) and presented in the Ministry of Finance report showed that Pronatec’s courses did not interfere in the reinsertion of those in the treatment group in relation to the control group.

In contrast to TCU’s audit and the study conducted by the Ministry of Finance, ideological mainstream media advertisements and the official speeches fulfill the function of convincing the population to the contrary. That is, that FIC courses contribute to the employability of low-skill workers and that the government is providing them access to such courses. A double function of legitimation is observed. That of capitalism as a hegemonic mode of production and that of the government that regulates the interests of capital.

Other data that attests the vigorous expansion of openings in Pronatec, from 2001 to 2014, were presented by the secretary of the Secretary of Professional and Technological Education (Setec) in a hearing held in the Education Commission of the House of Representatives in May 2015. The secretary presented a rise in Pronatec’s openings from 2011 to 2014, considering that in 2011 there were 900 thousand enrollments, in 2012, 2.6 million, in 2013, the enrollments reached a 5.3 million mark and, in 2014, 8.1 million.

In addition to this substantial increase in enrollments, the geographical coverage also expanded, Pronatec reached, in July 2014, 4025 municipalities, that is, 72 per cent of the total of the country, while, in July 2012, it was present in 606 municipalities.

The central element that arises with the expansion of professional education through the FIC courses in Pronatec’s scope is related to the format and the education concept based on the training for manual activities in a perspective that, according to Offe and Lenhardt (1984), we can call a training for passive proletarianization.

When addressing social policy, Offe and Lenhardt (1984, p. 15) state that it corresponds to “the way in which the state tries to solve the problem of the lasting transformation of non-wage labor into wage labor”. In order to explain this thesis, these authors make a distinction between passive and active proletarianization, pondering that the advance of capitalist industrialization is accompanied by a processes of disorganization of the labor force that end up “expropriating” the conditions of use of labor and subsistence of a certain group, leading it to a passive proletarianization.

The problem of the passive proletarianization, according to Offe and Lenhardt (1984, p. 17, emphasis added), would not be solved by itself, and, therefore, they defined that

[…] the mass transformation of the dispossessed labor force into wage labor would not have been and is not possible without a state policy, which would not be, in the strict sense, a “social policy”, but which in the same way contributes to integrating the labor force into the work market.

In this perspective, the state, through social policies, would present as a strategy the integration of labor force in the wage labor relation, that is, make certain groups leave passive proletarianization for active proletarianization, not only focusing on guaranteeing the labor force subsistence, but also on a necessary rationalization directed to the maintenance of capitalism, with the creation of a labor army.

Offe and Lenhardt (1984, p. 23) point out that the labor force is treated as commodity, but, unlike other commodities, its existence is not based solely on sales expectations, considering that for the maintenance of the system “mechanisms regulating quantitative volumes, capable of establishing the balance between passive and active proletarianization” is indispensable. Thus, based on the authors studied, we can affirm that public policies aimed at maintaining passive proletarianization have the role of legitimating the state’s power and, as a result, legitimating its leaders.

It is precisely in this construction that we place Pronatec, considering that the program integrates a state policy that, even presenting itself as a legitimation policy to guarantee the popularity of the government, it also moves in the direction of turning passive proletarianization into active proletarianization. In this first moment of the program, the function of legitimation took place to a much lesser extent than it was intended.

In addition to the analyses based on Offe and Lenhardt (1984, p. 23), we point out that by providing workers with simple work qualification, that gives little understanding of the production processes, Pronatec, through the FIC courses, contributes to meeting capital’s need offering a poorly qualified workforce. In this sense, we are based on Braverman (1977) who emphasizes that the social and technical division of work divides the society into occupations and the work of each “productive specialty” requires different levels of qualification of the workforce. In addition, the fact that the workforce is understood as a commodity by the capitalist. Therefore, to cheapen production costs, it is important that “work process be disconnected from knowledge and special preparation, and reduced to simple labor” (BRAVERMAN, 1977, p. 80).

Beyond the time frame of this topic (2011-2014), MEC’s official data of the 2011- 2016 period showed that the largest providers of Pronatec were the organizations System S, mainly Senai with 35 per cent and Senac with 27 per cent of the total openings offered, as shown in Table 2:

The data in Table 2 shows that, from a total of 9,503,063 enrollments, 27 per cent were offered by public institutions, while System S and other private organizations offered 73 percent of the openings. This information indicates that Pronatec has followed the central characteristics of current capitalism, in which the capitalist state has been used to create and execute strategies to overcome the crisis. One of these strategies is focused on the function of accumulation (O’CONNOR, 1977). According to Peroni (2013), neoliberalism, productive restructuring and the so called Terceira Via [Third-Way] redefine the role of the state, reorganizing educational processes, according to the market’s logic. Thus, the state begins to “rescue” the productive and financial capital of social and economic crisis.

Table 2
Total Pronatec enrollments by initiative and provider network

Year	Private Technical Schools	Private IES	Municipal Institutions	Federal Network	Regional Networks	SENAC	SENAI	SENAR	SENAT	Total
2011	-	-	-	173,379	86,792	189,628	327,138	-	-	776,937
2012	-	-	-	302,512	133,485	461,214	681,971	23,766	6,252	1,609,200
2013	27,578	119,885	1,036	476,196	195,703	762,137	990,818	43,615	89,266	2,706,234
2014	128,721	239,835	3,131	468,506	202,537	807,543	977,278	60,682	100,651	2,988,884
2015	30,233	17,490	1,096	286,768	132,443	278,410	382,963	21,207	1,248	1,151,858
2016	-	-	-	101,649	43,278	105,706	19,317	-	-	269,950
Total	186,532	377,210	5,263	1,809,010	794,238	2,604,638	3,379,485	149,270	197,417	9,503,063

⁹

Ricardo Lima (2012) raises reflections on these aspects and affirms that, with Pronatec, the Brazilian government completes the cycle of privatization, precarization and acceleration of professional education, highlighting mainly, the following points of Law 12.513/2011, which deal with the transfer of public resources to private companies, namely articles 3 and 6 of that law. These articles show that the proposal of professional education via Pronatec is supported by the so-called public-private partnership, which, in fact, as pointed out by Marcelo Lima (2012) and Ricardo Lima (2012), is the privatization of professional education.

We emphasize that a great part of Pronatec’s official documents refer to the transfer of public resources to private companies. This demonstrates the government’s concern in guaranteeing the program through this channel.

It is clear from the data available at MEC’s panel that System S surpassed the number of enrollments in comparison to the other provider networks, besides offering most of the private professional education enrollments. On this subject, Santos and Rodrigues (2013) cite data from 2010, according to which 56.49 per cent of professional education enrollments were in the private sphere and that SENAI provided 28 per cent of these enrollments. Considering Pronatec, this data intensifies since, as aforementioned, between 2011 and 2016, private companies concentrated 73 per cent of the enrollments and the S system was responsible for 65 per cent of this amount.

From 2015 to 2016: the decline in the Program’s openings

In 2015, a considerable reduction on the openings by Pronatec is observed, as shown in the 2015 SENAI report:

The reduction of 45% in the program’s enrollment when compared to the 2014 results is due to the necessary adjustment in public accounts. Despite the expenditure cuts, Pronatec is a decisive action to change and increase the productivity of companies. (SENAI, 2015, p. 27).

Soon after the reelection of President Dilma for her second term (2015-2018), under the influence of the wide acceptance of Pronatec in different social segments, due to the intensification of the economic and political crises, in 2015, there is a “deceleration” of the program.

The term “deceleration” was used by Gomes (2016), after emphasizing the initial expansion of the program, starting in 2015, and its reduction on the number of enrollments:

In relation to the total number of enrollments in Pronatec, after a strong expansion, between 2011 (777 thousand) and 2014 (3 million), there was a significant deceleration in 2015, with the registration of 1,2 million enrollments. For 2016, as aforementioned, a goal of 2 million enrollments was announced. (GOMES, 2016, p. 9).

According to Barbosa Filho (2017), the Brazilian economy has been in recession since the second quarter of 2014. According to the Brazilian Economic Cycle dating Committee (Codace), from the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, the Brazilian per capita output fell about 9 per cent between 2014 and 2016¹⁰.

In the beginning of Pronatec’s decline, in 2015, The Ministry of Education (MEC), together with the Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS), published a set of documents that referenced the implementation of Pronatec in the period between 2011 and 2014, in which they their intention to demonstrate the success of the program was clear.

In March 2016, according to Gomes (2016), the then Minister of Education Aloízio Mercadante launched a new moment of Pronatec, informing that 2 million openings would be offered in that year, 372 thousand for technical courses and 1.6 million for professional qualification courses. In contrast with what was announced by the minister, data showed that the opening of technical courses was higher than the FIC courses (Table 3):

Table 3
Pronatec’s enrollments according to the type of courses and scope of municipalities

Year	FIC	Variation % FIC	Technical	Variation % Technical	Total
2011	-	189,628	327,138	-	776,937
2012	-	461,214	681,971	23,766	1,609,200
2013	27,578	762,137	990,818	43,615	2,706,234
2014	128,721	807,543	977,278	60,682	2,988,884
2015	30,233	278,410	382,963	21,207	1,151,858
2016	-	105,706	19,317	-	269,950
Total	186,532	2,604,638	3,379,485	149,270	9,503,063

Source: Elaborated by the authors using data available at http://painel.mec.gov.br/.

Besides demonstrating the radical decrease in enrollment for Pronatec, data also showed that this decrease was much greater for FIC courses, so that in 2016, enrollment for technical courses was already higher than that of FIC courses. To analyze this shift, it is important to understand the set of changes that have occurred in the political arena and that have had an impact on education policy, including the implementation of Pronatec.

We will revisit the opening of President Rousseff’s impeachment process in December 2015. The reasons for its opening are quite complex. The then president

[...] – as soon as the re-election polls closed on October 27, 2014 – abandoned her campaign promises and adopted the program of her opponent, Aécio Neves, from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB). Gradually, the traditional social base of the Workers’ Party (PT) that had ensured the victory of candidate Dilma Rousseff drifted away from the government, paving the way for a growing right-wing offensive. The sudden worsening of the economic scenario and a planned recession, which brought down the GDP, created a situation of extreme vulnerability. (JINKINGS, 2016, p. 12).

Despite this reference by the author, announcing the beginning of the overthrow construction process of President Dilma as being the period after the 2014 elections, Boito Júnior (2016) maintains that the offensive took place in a previous phase of internal contradictions of the neo-developmentalist front. Thus, the author brings reflections on how the Lula and Dilma governments sought to reconcile the interests of the impoverished working class with the interests of large national companies.

We corroborate what Boito Júnior (2016) presents, especially when elucidating that the offensive against Dilma’s government was part of a project to restore the hegemony of neoliberalism. It is in this scenario of sharpening neoliberal ideology that the second moment of Pronatec is set. We emphasize that our understanding of the political and ideological scenario since the impeachment is that of a coup against the Democratic State of Law, not only because of the unfounded way Dilma was removed from power, but mainly because of the set of measures against workers’ rights that have been taking place since then.

In order to understand the implications of this scenario for the implementation of Pronatec, we recall that the final vote for the impeachment of President Dilma took place on August 31, 2016. And, exactly 22 days after President Michel Temer took office, the Provisional Measure (MP) 746/2016 was issued to promote a series of changes in Brazilian education policy in general, and in high school in particular. After 120 days, this MP became Law 13.415/2017 120, the so-called High School Reform law.

In the next subtopic, we will bring some elements related to rearrangements in Pronatec after the High School Reform.

High school post-reform period (Federal Law 3.415/2017): initial notes

In principle, this link between Pronatec and the so-called High School Reform¹¹ may seem strange to the reader, but this is what we will argue in this part of the text. In other words, the current reform is closely related to Pronatec, especially in what refers to the technical and professional training itinerary. Besides, both are “inspired” by the Capanema Reform of the 1940s.

To contextualize this reform, we recall that the process started a short time after the creation of Pronatec, when, on March 15, 2012¹², the Commission for Studies and Proposals for the Reformulation of High School (CEENSI) was created by initiative of the federal deputy Reginaldo Lopes, of the Worker’s Party (PT), in the State of Minas Gerais (MG), who chaired it.

CEENSI presented the Project Law (PL) 6.840/2013, proposing changes in the National Education Guidelines and Framework Law (LDB) (law 9.394/1996), particularly in what concerns high school, in line with Pronatec’s conception.

In this sense, in the PL’s justification, when presenting the intentions for the changes, it stated the need for

Expanding openings in technical professional high school education to fill the gaps in this modality of education, since only 14% of the high school enrollments also include professional education. This expansion of enrollments should happen not only through the growth of Pronatec and the increase of the Federal Network of Professional and Technological Education (IFET), but also through the financing of new units in the states. (BRASIL, 2013, p. 12-13, emphasis added).

In 2014, in an attempt to prevent PL 6.840/2013 from being approved, among other initiatives, the National Movement for High School Education was created, formed by ten entities13 from the educational field.

The individual researchers and the entities that make up the movement, in defense of public education with socially referenced quality, criticized PL 6.840/2013 that, together with the 2014 electoral process, resulted in the stagnation of its process.

As an example of criticism of PL 6.840/2013, we highlight the interview given to Brasil de Fato¹⁴ newspaper by the professor Marise Ramos¹⁵. She affirms that the content of the PL:

[…] represents a return to the legislation of the Capanema Reform of the 1940s, in which education was divided between classic, scientific and professionalizing. Even today it is possible to find people who have studied under this legislation, that never studied chemistry or physics because they took classical studies, or that never studied philosophy, sociology or even history.

Regarding the Capanema Reform, we recall that it was undertaken by the Education Minister Gustavo Capanema and the creation of the high school courses of the second cycle, scientific and classic, of three years duration, were aimed at preparing students for higher education. On the other hand, in the same Capanema Reform “the professional training for instrumental workers, starts offering alternatives for the second cycle of high school” (KUENZER, 2009, p. 28), being the agrotechnical, commercial technical, industrial technical and the normal, courses which would prepare for the work and not for higher education. This characterizes the duality between the propaedeutic trajectory towards higher education and another towards professionalization. However, there is another separation within the professionalizing itinerary. Cunha (2000) highlights that the Capanema Reform establishes two types of training for workers, as stated in the Decree Art. 8

Art. 8

The industrial education courses will have the following modalities:

Ordinary courses, or professional training courses;

Extraordinary courses, or qualification, improvement or specialization course;

Separate courses, or professional illustration. (BRASIL, 1942).

The ordinary courses refer to the second cycle high school and the extraordinary and separate courses were intended for faster training, with the purpose of specialization, updating, continuation and improvement. Thus, the distribution of the format of these courses, according to the Decree, is an implicit fulfillment of the Taylorist-Fordist production model, given the educational division made between more qualified workers (ordinary courses) and less qualified ones (extraordinary and separate courses), attending to the technical division of labor.

As for Pronatec, the offering of FIC courses can be compared to the extraordinary and separate course of the Capanema Reform, which aimed at a faster training, while the technical courses are similar to the ordinary or professional training courses of the aforementioned reform of the 1940s. On the other hand, the current reform (Law 13.415/2017)¹⁶, regarding the itinerary Technical and Professional Training, follows the same logic of Pronatec, which, in turn, is inspired by the Capanema Reform, as discussed in the previous paragraph. While the technical education of the itinerary “Technical and Professional Training” refers to the training in high school courses, the expression “and professional” is related to the education in short qualification courses, such as Pronatec’s FIC courses.

Thus, we conclude that there are many aspects of the Capanema Reform present in the trajectory of Pronatec’s implementation and also in the current High School Reform.

Analyzing the current High School Reform, it is important to point out that after president Dilma’s impeachment, the ideas of the PL 6.840/2013 were resumed even before the end of the first month of President Temer’s term. Therefore, in September, 2016, the Provisional Measure (PM) 746/2016 was issued and later converted into Law 13.415/2017, as aforementioned.

This whole process was accompanied by several demonstrations against the reform, mainly by high school students, who occupied several schools across the country against the content of the PM 746/2016 and other measures by Temer’s government, after a broad resistance movement. In addition to students, we highlight the manifestations of academic and political entities, which, according to Ferreti and Silva (2017, p. 288) are part of the National Movement in Defense of High School.

This content, in which the High School Reform was articulated, is soon understood by several education scholars, such as Ferreti and Silva (2017), as a process that involves the intensification of even more severe neoliberal policies for workers.

The MP’s 746/2016 justifications for implementing the High School Reform were the following:

Currently, high school has an extensive, superficial and fragmented curriculum, which does not dialog with youth, with the productive sector, nor with the demands of the 21st century. A research conducted by the Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning (Cebrap), with the support of the Victor Civita Foundation – FVC, showed that low-income young people do not see any sense in what school teaches.

[…] A new model of high school will offer, in addition to knowledge in different fields, qualification courses, internship and professional technical professional training, according to availability in each education system, which aligns the premises of this proposal with the recommendations of the World bank and the United Nation’s Children Fund (Unicef). (BRASIL, 2016, our emphasis).

With these justifications, it is clear that the intentions of the changes proposed promptly meet the demands of the production based on the premises of international organizations, such as the World Bank and Unicef, which were cited. This is in line with what has been implemented in Pronatec, especially when the program underwent some changes with the MP 746/2016, when the government announced on December 2016 the expansion of openings for technical courses through MedioTec.

Thus, we observe that in 2017 Pronatec’s focus shifted from FIC courses to technical courses through MedioTec. This movement shows the government’s clear intention to implement the High School Reform under the discourse of training a more qualified workforce for the productive sector.

Therefore, both Pronatec and the High School Reform have a well-defined project to contribute to the reproduction of the capitalist state and the concept of education is based on an exclusively technical training to the detriment of an education capable of providing ample education through the integration of education, work, science and technology.

Final considerations

Considering this worrying scenario that is being designed for professional education with the implementation of Pronatec and the set of transformations that led to the High School Reform, which is part of a larger context of production and reproduction of the capitalist system, we reiterate that a public policy that aims to improve Brazilian education and, above all, high education, should present concrete actions to guarantee the right of low-income students to continue their studies and not predestinate them to the so-called work army or positions that demand low qualification and, as a consequence lower wages and poor occupancy conditions (OFFE; LENHARDT, 1984).=

We understand that a high school that integrates propaedeutic and professional education largely offered by the federal institutes, application schools of the federal universities and some state networks represent one of the experiences that is closest to an integral human education, based on the polytechnics, omnilaterality and in the unitary school, despite the challenges that arise in overcoming the unique demands of the market.

Therefore, a program or a reform that truly advocates the improvement of the quality of high school should be based on expanding the offering of an integrated high school, assuming a commitment with students, especially low-income students, giving them conditions to actively participate in the consolidation of a democratic society in our country.

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• 2
  - National Program of Integration of Professional Education with Basic Education in the Mode of Education of Youth and Adults.
• 3
  - Program “Coffee with the President” on October 24, 2011. http://www.biblioteca.presidencia.gov.br/presidencia/ex-presidentes/dilma-rousseff/cafe-presidenta/programa-de-radio-201ccafe-com-a-presidenta201d-com-a-presidenta-da-republica-dilma- rousseff-9, viewed April 23, 2018.
• 4
  - http://www.spe.fazenda.gov.br/notas-e-relatorios/estudo-sobre-o-pronatec/relatorio-tecnico-nov2015.pdf, viewed March 20, 2018.
• 5
  - http://portal.mec.gov.br/index.php?option=com_docman&view=download&alias=22051-24092015-lancamento-estudos-pronatec-mds-pdf&category_slug=abril-2010-pdf&Itemid=30192, viewed February 19, 2018.
• 6
  - The FIC courses comprise the worker scholarship modality and the technical courses that include the student scholarship. These modalities are registered in Law 12.513/2011, article 4, clause IV. For us the use of the nomenclature “scholarship” in the law is linked to the format of the program’s openings through public-private partnerships. Therefore, both the student or worker scholarship was a solution found by the government to transfer financial resources from the program to the professional and technological education network itself, as a legal maneuver to allocate funds for the S System and other private companies.
• 7
  - http://cps.fgv.br/VOT2, viewed September 1, 2014.
• 8
  - Professional qualification is the term used in the research for the FIC courses.
• 9
  - http://painel.mec.gov.br/painel/detalhamentoIndicador/detalhes/pais/acaid/145
• 10
  - The origin of this crisis requires deeper investigation. It is related to the crisis in the world economy, which began in 2008, and to the political crisis in Brazil, resulting from the 2014 electoral process. However, we will not discuss this further due to our object of study.
• 11
  - We call the attention to the term “High School Reform” to problematize what Ferreira (2017) argues, when saying that it is a counter-reform, based on Behirng (2003), who refuses to link the concept of reform to progressive processes and considers that reforms are a strategy of the Left.
• 12
  - It is important to mention this date because the CNE/CEB Resolution 02/2012, which approved new national curricular guidelines for high school, was issued on January 30, based on a conception of integral human formation. Meanwhile, the CEENSI, which drafted PL 6840, based on a market perspective of human education, was made only two months later (March 15, 2012), by initiative of a PT parliamentarian.
• 13
  - The entities that composed the National Movement for High School were: National Association of Postgraduate Studies and Research in Education (Anped), Center of Studies Education and Society (Cedes), National Forum of Education College Directors (Forumdir), National Association for Education of Education Professionals (Anfope), Brazilian Society of Physics (SBF), Educational Action, National Campaign for the Right to Education, National Association of Education Politics and Administration (Anpae), national Council of the Institutions of the Federal Network of Professional, Scientific and Technological Education (Conif) and Confederação National Confederation of Education Workers (CNTE). http://www.observatoriodoensinomedio.ufpr.br/movimento-nacional-em-defesa- do-ensino-medio-2/.
• 14
  - http://www.brasildefato.com.br/node/27562, viewed September 10, 2014.
• 15
  - Professor at the Joaquim Venâncio Health Politechnic School (EPSJV/Fiocruz) and at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).
• 16
  - The law establishes that high school curricular organization will be in two parts. A Common National Base (BNCC) followed by five possible educational itineraries: I technologies; II – mathematics and its technologies; III – natural sciences and its technologies; IV – human and social applied sciences; V – technical and professional education. Due to our object of study in this article, we will focus on itinerary V.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  24 June 2022
• Date of issue
  2022

History

• Received
  13 July 2020
• Reviewed
  02 Sept 2020
• Accepted
  20 Oct 2020