The performance of the Federal Institutes of Education, Science and Technology in the propposal of Higher Education: an analysis from the experience of Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
Higher Education - Higher Professional Training Institution - Undergraduate Education.
The Federal Network of Professional, Scientific and Technological Education was established by Law No. 11.892 / 2008. This same law created the Federal Institutes (IFs) and outlined a new organizational structure for Brazilian professional education. The IFs represent the materialization of the Lula Government project (2003-2011) for the expansion of the federal network of professional education, already existing in Brazil. The IFs were structured from the reinstitutionalization of former federal technical and agrotechnical schools, technical schools linked to federal universities and CEFETs and should offer professional education at all levels and modalities of education, from Basic Education to Higher Education, including, the initial and continuing training courses. Currently, the IFs make up most of the Federal Network for Professional, Scientific and Technological Education. Until the creation of the IFs, the focus of the educational offer of most of the institutions that made up the federal professional education network was the technical education. With the creation of the IFs, the provision of Higher Education in the Federal Network of Professional, Scientific and Technological Education was institutionalized by law, however, the professional technical secondary education was kept as a priority and should represent 50% of the educational offer of the IFs. Higher Education should be developed through technological training with Technology and Bachelor Degree Courses, of pedagogical training with Degree Courses and training at postgraduation level (stricto and lato sensu). Regarding the Degree Courses, the law that created the IFs, stipulated that their offer must correspond to 20% of the vacancies. This new scenario has led to a change in the educational role of the former federal professional education network. Confronted with this, our research presents the following questions: how the current Federal Network of Professional, Scientific and Technological Education has been developing its task in the division of labor of Higher Education and what is the performance of IFs in the role of provider of this level of education. Our research will take as empirical reference the Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro (IFRJ) and aims to explain the determining elements of the process of implementation and development of Higher Education in IFRJ. An explanatory qualitative analysis will be performed, which falls under the documentary research category. In this study, we consider pertinent the adoption of dialectical historical materialism as a research method. Our theoretical framework is based on the following categories of analysis: sociometabolic system of capital; capital crisis and bourgeois recomposition; restructuring of the world of work; State and State reform, public policies for professional and technological education. From these references, we understand that education is built by the demands of capital development and valorization and the reforms that took place in Brazil are part of the movement of recomposition of the bourgeoisie for the incorporation of the working class in its project of society, in face of the organic crisis of capital. The creation of IFs, in addition to the expanding access to Higher Education, performs the following functions in order to meet the essential demands for the development and valorization of capital: the formation of qualified technical staff to meet the requirements of new technological standards, the formation of industrial reserve army and the ethical-political conformation of the working class to intensify the precariousness of the working world.