The executive secretary of the Ministry of Education, Izolda Cela, said this Thursday (21), in São Paulo, that the government expects the national policy on professional and technological education to be formulated and regulated “as soon as possible”.
Izolda did not give a specific date on when the policy will begin to be discussed and presented, but said that the government intends to build it with “broad participation” from society, taking into account the specificities of each state.
“We cannot waste time, but we also cannot be in a hurry and run over processes that are important to make it more sustainable. But, according to the Minister (of Education, Camilo Santana), we have to reach the end of the year, if not with the policy prepared, already with a very effective forwarding for the beginning of next year”, he said in an interview with journalists after participating in the Education Meeting and Work: Perspectives on Professional and Technological Education, held at the Cinemateca Brasileira.
According to the secretary, actions related to the evaluation of the system are underway. “This is something that was on our agenda and now has this legal determination. And the ministry will call on partners so that we can start organizing the foundations of this policy,” she added.
The law that determines the implementation of a national professional and technological education policy was sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in August. The legislation establishes that the policy must be ready within two years.
For Monica Pinto, head of education at the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef Brazil), the policy needs to be put into practice “urgently”.
“We who work with public policy have to have this sense of urgency. We have a demographic dividend that is coming to an end. So, the sooner we can accelerate and prioritize these measures, the better for these young people and for Brazil,” he said.
This urgency, said Monica, is explained by the large number of young Brazilians who are currently out of the job market and are not even studying. A recent report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showed that 36% of young Brazilians do not study and are out of work.
Another fact, which she points out as worrying, is the fact that, in the world, between 30% and 40% of young people are attending technical and vocational education, while, in Brazil, this average reaches only 11%.
“We have made progress in recent years, but we have made progress very slowly. The sooner we can make these legal mechanisms viable that make us speed up, the better,” she said.
For the federal deputy and president of the Education Front in the National Congress, Tabata Amaral (PSB-SP), the approval of this legal framework for technical and vocational education “is one of the most structuring agendas not only of Brazilian education, but of Brazil as a all.”
“This project requires Brazil to have a national structuring policy for vocational technical education. This is in the law and now this mission is with the Ministry of Education so that, within two years, we have this policy”, he highlighted.
According to the parliamentarian, technical education is not intended to replace higher education nor to separate rich and poor.
“There is a prejudice against the technical education agenda. There is a discourse that higher education is for the rich and technical education is for the poor. But then we need to look at the data and reality. In practice, vulnerable young people are not even finishing high school today. The school dropout rate more than doubled during the pandemic. This prejudice of thinking that we have to choose between one and the other reflects a very unequal and very divided Brazil. We need to expand the number of doors open to youth, who are in an extremely vulnerable condition.”
To reduce high school dropouts, the government is preparing to launch a scholarship grant policy. This week, minister Camilo Santana said, in São Paulo, that the idea would be to transfer part of the amount monthly to students and the rest would be deposited in a type of savings account, to be withdrawn when the young person completes their studies.
Floods in RS
During the interview, executive secretary Izolda Cela also said that the Ministry of Education will allocate resources to help recover schools in municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul hit by floods this month.
According to the secretary, a delegation from the department should be in the state next week to assess the problem. “The Secretary of Basic Education of the MEC, Kátia (Schweickardt), will make a visit soon, I think next week, with a delegation from other ministries. They will be there, once again, to make some commitments related to this. In the case of Education, especially for the structures of schools and daycare centers”.
The secretary informed that the resources will be allocated to both infrastructure and furniture, but that there is no deadline for when they will be released. “We will have this trip with the interministerial group, but there is bureaucracy time. But the ministry is compromised. Minister Camilo (Santana) has already determined that we need to enter into significant collaboration in those most affected municipalities,” she said. The information is from Agência Brasil.
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