REVIEW
POLICIES AND EVALUATION OF STRICTO SENSU POST-GRADUATION:
from local social
insertion to internationalization
By Renata Azevedo Campos
Colégio Pedro II (CPII)
Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
FERREIRA, Valdivina Alves (org.). Políticas e avaliação da Pós-Graduação
stricto sensu: da inserção social local à internacionalização. Brasília: Cátedra UNESCO de Juventude,
Educação e Sociedade; Universidade Católica de Brasília, 2018.
The structuring of graduate studies in Brazil returns to 1965, when opinion nº 977, from the Federal Council of Education, brought the definition of the courses of
this level of education. In this context, the Theory of Human Capital,
as well as its emphasis on the formation
of human resources, already guide public
policies (CUNHA, 1988),including with
regardto graduate studies. The relationship
between educational education and the demands of the productive system, which crosses the educational debate, gains new contours in a context of financialization of the economy and
the rise of neoliberalism, nod.
This new moment is marked
not only by the hegemony of speculative capital, but also by its globalized dimension,
which brings significant consequences to education. This is because the
expansion of the circulation of capital followed a pressure on the circulation
of knowledge and its producers, intellectuals. Considering the
unequal nature of the relationship between countries and the international
division of labor, it can be assumed that the internationalization of
education is also not a
simple issue to be resolved.
The work, published in
2018, aims to critically analyze these points, from seven articles, written by
professors and in addition to several postgraduate courses, in Brazil and abroad. Generally, the paper makes an analysis of
graduate studies in the 21st century, historically recovering elements that
help us understand the issues and contradictions presented. The main themes
covered are evaluation policies, the
relationship between public-private and internationalization. Despite the
critical point of view, the multiplicity of perspectives marks thedistribution
ofarticles, both in theoretical-methodological
terms and in terms of propositions. The
academic and professional history of the authors is materialized in different
and oftenonflitating analyses, bringing an important contribution to the
production of scientific knowledge.
The first article,
entitled The Policy of Internationalization
of the Stricto Sensu Brazilian Graduate Program: brief considerations about
capes' current policy, was
written by professor João dos Reis Silva Junior and Fabíola Kato. It focuses on graduate policy in Brazil, in the second decade of the 21st
century, from bibliographic analysis and primary sources, especially the
follow-up report, produced in 2017, of
the National Graduate Plan (PNPG) 2011-2020. The authors
argue that the Brazilian graduate program goes through a process of
introducing an economic rationality that, even referring to the governments of the 1990s,
gains new impetus in the current
context. This new university culture is
characterized mainly by the pro-educationofhigher education with the
productive sector, forging what the authors call raw material knowledge, developed to incorporate air into economic
production.
The chapter is divided
into two main parts, the first beingedicada to the analysis of these models,
transformation in Brazil, from the understanding that it constitutes a global trend. And, in the second, the authors analyze, in more detail, the
primary sources, unlooking the passive way in which Brazil is part of the
globalization of knowledge commodified[1].
In the article
Interfaces between the PNPG and the PNE in the expansion and financing policy of postgraduate
studies in Brazil, professor Luciana Ferreira and Vera Chaves work
with a historical background similar to
the previous one, bringing the state reform, from
1995, as a milestone of the new formsof
management and evaluation. Starting from the dialectical historical materialist
method, the text advances in some
questions, starting with the analysis of the numbers that indicate the
expansion of graduate studies in Brazil,
especially since the launch of the first National Graduate Plan in 1975, when
the relationship between knowledge and
industrialization was formalized.
Deepening the analysis,
the authors make a comparison of the goals launched by the National Education
Plan, 2014, and the issues raised in 2017 by the Comissão Especial de Acompanhamento of PNPG,
also worked in previous chapter. The partir
of thesefonts, it is understood that the documents are coherent with each
other, but contradictory with the financing policy implemented, which does not
allow the planned expansion. In this context,
the article understands that the possibility of
expansion is with the lowering of quality and/or with
openness to the market..
In The postgraduate program and the
scientific system in Portugal after Bologna: an expansion still insufficient, Maria Luísa Cerdeira
and Belmiro Cabrito, from the University of Lisbon,
aim to analyze higher education Portuguese, with emphasis on graduate studies, in the period
after the Bologna Declaration that
standardized European higher education, in orderto allow greatercirtion of cultural capital, as already occurred with financial capital. To undertake this
analysis, the authors recover the developmentof education inthecountry, since the 1970s, showing the expansion of
compulsory education and the expansion of demand for higher education, which
saw its private supply grow in the 1980s, due to the insuence ofpublicinstitutions. Although the percentage of private
higher education, in total enrollment, was reduced in the 21st century, the
text shows how public education itself went through a privatization process
when school fees began to be charged in 1992.
As for the Bologna
Declaration the authors analyze how the choice for the English model
was motivated by the orientation of producing
more with less, making the educational system more efficient and less costly.
Nevertheless, in the period following the agreement, the text shows how
Portugalhas developed, with the significant
expansion of graduate studies, in acontext
in which the undergraduate diploma becomes insufficient.
Continuing the
international approach, article The
postgraduate and the training of doctors in Education in Brazil and Canada is authored by a Brazilian doctoral student,
Isabela Braga, and Lynette Schultz and Ranilce Iosif, from the Universidade
Aberta, Canada, where the former held a
sandwich doctoral internship. The proposal is to conduct a comparative
analysis, based on official documents that deal with the evaluation of postgraduate courses in both countries. In
brazil, CAPES documents were
selected, depending on its centralized policy,
and, in the case of Canada, documents from the province and university
investigated. The article
develops in order to contextualize policies historically, dividing into three
main points. In the first two, the general characteristics of graduate studies
in education in Brazil and Canada, respectively, are addressed, and in the
third, the comparison between the countries is made.
As a background, we have
the neoliberal advance and the new role of the State, over everything about management, with a
view to understanding its impacts on
graduate studies. While, in Brazil, the main consequence refers to the
quantitative emphasis, linked to academic productivism, in Canada, the greater
link between the University and companies is highlighted, in a context of
reduction of the federal budget. This differentiation, which has in common the
basis of the training of knowledge, can
be understood by the organization of higher education in each country. Without
intending to refuse any system, the authors propose to raise the contradictions
and challenges of a democratic and
emancipatory formation in this neo
liberal context.
In The evaluation of stricto sensu postgraduate programs in Brazil: characteristics and
context, the general coordinator of
the CAPES Evaluation Board, Elisa Thiago, and Professor Vanessa Andreotti present a description of Capes' evaluation
system. Unlike the previous article, they bring an understanding that the
current evaluation system has made it possible to expand graduate studies with
monitoring of its quality. The bond of one of the authors with CAPES helps us to
understand this difference, as it brings
to the larger text deepen presentation of
the stages of the evaluation process but does not incorporate
so many problematizations.
Thus, the second part of the text is dedicated to the
contradictions and challenges of graduate evaluation, both about the existing
system in Brazil, and the problems experienced
externally, with which we could learn. In the first aspect, regional
asymmetries that challenge homogeneous evaluation criteria are prioritized. In
the second aspect, the problems related to the commodification of higher
education are raised, ranging from market interference on training to the
transformation of teaching-learning relationships into commercial relations.. Inthe
contextual approach,the characteristics ofneoliberalism
are raised to understand these challenges.
However, the evaluation isnot understood in this framework, but as an important
instrument to safeguard the place of graduate studies in the resolution of
national problems.
The sixth article,
entitled Internationalization
of Graduate Studies in Education: the case of PPGE/UFMG, is signed by professors
Maria de Fátima Gomes and
Isabel de Oliveira e Silva. It differs by bringing a proposal of
internationalization based on solidarity and reciprocity, using the example of
the Graduate Program in Education of UFMG. The starting point of the analysis
are the conceptual dyads that break up passive andactive internationalization. Although
highlighting the insufficiency of these concepts for the proposal of
internationalization of PPGE-MG, the authors analyze theprojects that
enroll this program in the context of the national
trend, predominantly passive.
Firstly, because of the
importance of trade on the southern axis, i.e. with countries other than Europe
and North America. And, secondly, by the circulation of professionals and
students not only from Brazil out, but also in reverse, from projects led by
the Brazilian program. In these relations, whichare
based on the understanding of cultural differentiation and Latin American
belonging, solidarity and reciprocity are the axes of this proposal of
methodology to guide internationalization.
Finally, in the article The
professional insertion of masters and doctors, the doctoral student Thaís Pereira and Professor Célio da Cunha start
from the premise that education should be
an act for economic development and improvement of people's quality of life. The
question of analysis is how the master and the
doctor are part of professional
life, in view of understanding the relationship
between training and professional
situation in Brazil.
The authors argue that
highly qualified professionals do not occupy a corresponding position in thetrabalho
market due to the permanence of a technicalmodel of
research and the distancing of private companies.
Starting from the demands of society
and knowledge, the proposal of the text is an adaptation of public
policies to the new skills required specialized labor market, including in
terms of international circulation.
As we can see, the book
expresses the multiplicity of social thought, complexing the understanding
of the challenges facing graduate school, in Brazil and in the world. To this
end, it brings tiresome questions of the educational debate, such as
mercantilization, evaluation and internationalization, in different
perspectives and composing different proposals. The importance of this book
lies precisely in the implication of researchers with the object worked, which
is their own work.
Reference
CUNHA,
Luiz Antônio. A Universidade Reformanda. Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves,
1988.
FERREIRA,
Valdivina Alves (org.). Políticas e
avaliação da Pós-Graduação stricto sensu: da inserção social local à
internacionalização. Brasília: Cátedra UNESCO de Juventude, Educação
e Sociedade; Universidade Católica de Brasília, 2018.
ABOUT AUTHORA
Renata Azevedo Campos holds a PhD
and master’s degree in Education from Fluminense Federal University and is a technician in educational objects of Colégio Pedro II.
E-mail:
renataazevedort@gmail.com
Received: 03.09.2020
Accepted: 12.09.2020