MEC intends to reduce itinerary and prohibit distance learning

The Ministry of Education (MEC) released, this Monday (7), the main results of the Public Consultation for the Evaluation and Restructuring of the National Secondary Education Policy. The document will be the basis for the legal changes to be made in the structure of the school stage.

The implementation of the new high school, which began with the reform approved in 2017, had been suspended by the MEC, on April 5 of this year, for 60 days, after pressure from education unions and student movements. The Lula government’s decision was considered illegal by some states, as it deliberated against a law passed by Congress. At the same time, the MEC opened a public consultation to hear society and the educational community (students, teachers and administrators) on the subject.

The public consultation process took place from March 8 to July 6. The initiative had the objective of listening to society and the educational community in order to collect subsidies that would contribute to the MEC’s ​​decision-making on the normative acts that regulate secondary education.

“The report goes beyond the curriculum issue, it is about the quality of secondary education for young Brazilians,” said the Minister of Education, Camilo Santana. He informed that the focus of the folder is to encourage a “creative, welcoming, opportunity-oriented school, focused on full-time and vocational education, with incentives for students to stay”.

Among the highlights of the proposal are:

• recomposition of the workload of basic general training to 2,400 hours (with the exception of technical courses);
• reduction from five to three training itineraries (which are now called courses for deepening and integrating studies): one for technical and professional training, another for languages, mathematics and natural sciences and the third with languages, mathematics and human and social sciences ;
• maintenance of the 2024 National Secondary Education Examination (Enem) aimed at basic training;
• inclusion of disciplines such as Spanish, art, physical education, literature, history, sociology, philosophy, geography, chemistry, physics, biology and digital education in basic general education;
• prohibition of distance education in basic general education and a 20% limit in technical professional education;
• announcement of strategies to recompose learning by students affected by the pandemic and by problems with implementing the new secondary education.

The report also pointed out the need for the government to expand full-time education, in addition to offering EJA and nocturnal secondary education, as a way to avoid school exclusion. And another suggestion for a permanence policy was the creation of a scholarship or savings for vulnerable high school students in Brazil.

To prepare the report, which will have a period of 30 days, MEC held 13 webinars with specialists, promoted 4 public hearings, promoted the National Student Meeting in Brasília and received more than 11 thousand responses through Plataforma+Brasil and in the online consultation, via WhatsApp, there were 139,159 participants.

Several civil society associations collaborated with the public consultation, by sending suggestions to the ministry. Among them, the National Council of Secretaries of Education (Consed).

Before being sent to the Legislature, the ministry will receive suggestions from educational organizations on the proposal presented until August 21st. The project is expected to be sent to the National Congress by the end of the month.