This paper analyzes the relationship between the process that turns municipalities into federal entities qualified to establish their own education systems based on collaboration and the proposals to build a National Education System contained in the documents used at CONAE to work out the new National Plan for Education. Based on the principle of subsidiarity, it seeks to conceptualize and contextualize collaboration to unveil the various inconsistencies of such proposals. Results point out inconsistency, inaccuracy and incoherence as for the prescription of collaboration in education, which can result in an imbroglio over the already sufficiently complex Brazilian federal arrangement.
Federalism and education; National Education System; Collaboration system; National Plan for Education (2011-2020)