New high school rapporteur wants fewer common subjects – 12/07/2023 – Education

The rapporteur of the bill for changes in the New Secondary Education, deputy Mendonça Filho (União-PE) wants to reduce the workload for regular subjects, in relation to the proposal presented by the Lula government (PT). Instead of allocating 2,400 hours to general training, he calls for these subjects to be limited to 2,100 hours of the curriculum at this stage.

The 300 fewer hours mean that students will have two months less classes in subjects such as mathematics, Portuguese, history and chemistry, among others, during their three years of high school.

The proposal defended by Mendonça followed a suggestion from the council of state education secretaries, Consed, so that these 300 hours are considered flexible, giving governments the autonomy to define whether they want to fill them with regular subjects or with training itineraries —apart from the curriculum that each student can choose to delve deeper into.

The deputy must send the text with the changes to the bill before next Tuesday (12).

Former Minister of Education in the Michel Temer government, Mendonça was responsible for approving the secondary education reform that created the itinerary model and reduced the load of traditional subjects. Of the 3,000 hours of annual courses, 1,800 (60%) were reserved for the common course, with traditional subjects, such as mathematics and Portuguese, and 1,200 hours (40%) were dedicated to optional subjects.

The implementation of the diversified curriculum from 2022 has provoked a series of complaints from students, teachers and students, who point out disconnected content in classes such as “how to become a millionaire” and RPG.

The strong mobilization forced current minister Camilo Santana to present a proposal to solve the problems created by the reform. In October, the government presented a bill that increases the number of hours for basic training from 1,800 to 2,400 hours.

Thus, the government intended to limit the so-called training itineraries to 600 hours.

State education secretaries, who are responsible for 80% of secondary education enrollments in the country, have always been against changes in the reform. They argue that the problems highlighted by students are specific. They also say more time is needed to adjust implementation in schools. Therefore, they advocated that the division of the current workload be maintained.

After the government presented the project that changes the distribution of classes, they tried to build a proposal that would be a “middle term” with the support of Mendonça. Responsible for approving the reform in 2017, he says he seeks to maintain the “essence” of curriculum flexibility.

“If 2,400 hours are defined for basic training, the flexible part of the curriculum will be eliminated, it will not be possible to offer itineraries in such a short time. The diversified part is important, it allows the young person’s educational training to be connected with the world of work”, argues Mendonça.

When contacted, the Ministry of Education did not respond about the new proposal.

A technical note, signed by more than 30 education academics, criticized the proposal defended by Mendonça and the secretaries. The document, prepared by members of Repu (Public School and University Network) and the National Campaign for the Right to Education, states that the flexibility of secondary education established a “fragmenting and precarious curricular logic of professional training”.

It also states that the logic of offering training itineraries proved to be “unfeasible in state networks and leads to curricular emptying in public schools, under the fallacious discourse of freedom of choice for students”. As shown by the Sheetin several regions of the country, itineraries were imposed or even drawn for students.

Mendonça denies the criticism and says he hopes the proposal will be approved soon. According to him, the project that will be presented, with 2,100 hours for basic training, was a “concession” to the government to meet the wishes of everyone involved.

He also said that he retreated from proposing changes to Enem in the bill. “I gave in on this point so that the government can later discuss and define what changes it will make to the exam. The important thing now is to think about the high school curriculum,” he said.

Mendonça’s project also maintains the rules of the law in force that exempt states from offering Spanish classes and allows distance classes.