MEC suspends new distance learning degrees in 17 areas – 11/30/2023 – Education
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A decree from the MEC (Ministry of Education) suspended, this Thursday (30), the accreditation processes for new distance higher education courses in 17 areas, including law, medicine and all degrees.
The Minister of Education, Camilo Santana, has expressed concern about the quality of non-face-to-face graduations and has already opposed the modality for, for example, teacher training and health courses.
On the other hand, remote courses are one of the biggest expansion bets for the private higher education sector. The distance learning modality already receives 2 out of every 3 students who enter higher education in Brazil.
Of the 4.7 million who started undergraduate courses in 2022, more than 3.1 million were distance learning.
The suspension is valid for 90 days. According to the ordinance published in this Thursday’s Official Gazette, the purpose of the act is to await the “proposed regulation of offering undergraduate courses in the Distance Education modality”. The ministry carried out a public consultation on the topic and received 14,736 contributions — but the result was not released.
Requests for accreditation of distance learning courses in the following areas have been suspended:
- biomedicine
- Religious Sciences
- Right
- Physical education
- Nursing
- Pharmacy
- Physiotherapy
- Speech therapy
- Geology/ Geological Engineering
- Medicine
- Nutrition
- Oceanography
- Dentistry
- Psychology
- Public Health
- Occupational therapy
- Degrees in any area
A Sheet asked the MEC for the number of affected processes but did not receive a response until the publication of this text.
Requests for accreditation of new non-face-to-face higher education institutions that had an assessment lower than 4, on a scale that goes up to 5, were also suspended. This suspension is also valid for 90 days.
When releasing the latest Higher Education Census, in October, the minister highlighted a special fear regarding the training of teachers in distance learning degrees, since today they bring together 81% of those who enroll in these courses. At the end of September, Camilo had already stated that he does not believe it is possible to train quality teachers remotely to work in schools.
“I’m not saying that the modality doesn’t work, but it is impossible to train good professionals in certain distance learning courses. This is the case with teaching degrees. We urgently need to review the regulation of these courses, because these are the teachers who are arriving at schools”, said the minister.
Of the 789,115 new undergraduate students in 2022, more than 650,000 went to private educational institutions, with 93.7% of them opting for distance learning courses at these colleges.
One of the biggest pressures from the private market is the release of distance law courses. Law has the largest number of students enrolled in face-to-face courses in the country, with 671 thousand students in 2022, the most recent data. Of the 1,067 private law courses with students evaluated in the last Enade, 33% received grades 1 and 2 — a level considered inadequate and which could lead to regulatory actions in these courses.
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