High school: SP students do not feel ready to take Enem – 03/20/2024 – Education

The first in the country to complete three years of high school after the curricular change at this stage, 85% of students interviewed in a survey in the São Paulo state network say they do not feel prepared to take the Enem and other entrance exams after studying in the new model .

This is one of the results of a study carried out by Repu (Public School and University Network) and Gepud (Public School and Democracy Group). The groups are made up of researchers from several public universities in São Paulo who have been following the implementation of new secondary education in the São Paulo state network for three years — which has the highest number of enrollments and was the first in the country to adopt the model.

696 high school graduates from six state schools were interviewed, between October 23 and November 4, 2023.

The new secondary education law, sanctioned by the Temer government (MDB), established that students must have 3,000 hours of classes over the three years of the stage, with 1,800 (60%) common to all with traditional subjects. The other 1,200 hours (40%) are allocated to so-called training itineraries.

According to the survey, 85% of students interviewed said that the reduction in time allocated for regular subjects meant that they did not feel prepared to take the Enem and other entrance exams or believe that they could enter higher education.

As shown by Sheet, the new organization of the high school curriculum in São Paulo left students without history, geography, biology, chemistry and physics classes in the last year of this stage of education last year. They also only had two math classes a week and two Portuguese classes.

The reduction in common subjects occurred to make room for subjects created for training itineraries — part of the curriculum that, in theory, allows students to choose an area of ​​knowledge to deepen their studies. The survey also found that 64.5% of the students interviewed said they had not followed the itinerary they chose.

“Our research follows these students from the beginning of the implementation of the new curriculum to observe how the policy actually translates into the school floor. What this first class shows us is that the policy arrived in the classroom without guaranteeing what it proposed : the opportunity for young people to choose and the greater connection between school content and the student’s life project”, says Ana Paula Corti, one of the researchers responsible.

Corti also remembers that in the last edition of Enem, held at the end of last year, São Paulo was the state with the second lowest participation rate in the test — only 34% of graduates who studied in public schools took the exam.

“Students no longer take classes on the content that is required in tests such as Enem, so they do not feel prepared and consequently will not take the exam. The new secondary education has discouraged these young people from entering higher education, continuing to study and It also didn’t bring the prospect of finding a better job”, says Márcia Jacomini, coordinator of the research, which is financed by Fapesp.

The data also shows that 79.3% of those interviewed say they believe that the reduction in common subjects will negatively impact their lives. One of the premises of the new secondary education is that training itineraries would allow young people to anticipate their professional choice, choosing to study the area that is closest to the field in which they want to work.

However, the survey shows that 60.2% of students said they were not satisfied with the itinerary they followed and 81.5% did not approve of the subjects created for this optional part of the curriculum. As shown by the Sheetschools started to offer subjects called “gourmet brigadeiro” and “how to become a millionaire”.

The results also show that the majority of students have not attended classes to expand the workload of the new high school — which is another premise of the policy, which defends the need for more class hours for young people. As the law allowed part of these classes to take place remotely, 61.8% students said they did not participate in the activities.

“The increase in the number of hours occurs on paper, it is provided for in the law, but it is not actually happening at school. There is no point in increasing the hours if it is not done with quality. What kind of class is this where the student is not at school, There’s no teacher, no guidance? If there’s no quality, the student won’t study for more hours”, says Corti.

After an agreement between the Lula government (PT) and the Chamber of Deputies, changes to the format of the new secondary education can be voted on this Wednesday (20). The main impasse was precisely the number of hours allocated to training itineraries.

The minister of education, Camilo Santana, wanted the workload for common subjects to increase from 1,800 hours to 2,400. The project’s rapporteur, deputy Mendonça Filho (União-PE), argued that common subjects should be limited to just 2,100 hours.

Former minister of education in the Temer government, Mendonça was responsible for approving the secondary education reform that created the itinerary model and reduced the burden of traditional subjects. He argues that the format guarantees “greater connection between school training and the world of work”.

After negotiation, the MEC agreed to reduce the common schedule to 1,800 hours for cases in which the student opts for professional technical courses. Thus, students will be able to take a technical nursing course, for example, of 1,200 hours — in total, 3,000 hours per year in high school.

In other training itineraries, which are the areas that students have to choose to deepen their secondary education, the requirement remains at 2,400 hours.

Complaints from São Paulo students and teachers with the new high school model led the Tarcísio de Freitas (Republican) government to anticipate changes at this stage — even without the changes being defined by congress and the federal government.

Instead of offering 11 training itineraries, the government decided that this year there will be only two (Exact Sciences/Natural Sciences and Languages/Human Sciences). It also decided to increase the number of classes for regular subjects.