The battle of the New High School – 03/20/2023 – Education

Created by a Provisional Measure during the Temer government, the so-called “new high school” is the subject of discussion between a group that understands that it was born with incurable problems and should be fully revoked and another that believes that the model has not yet been implemented and can be adjusted. In the midst of this are students and educators, who have not been consulted to this day.

The main thing was not put on the table by the two sides in dispute: what to put in its place, in case of revocation? What adjustments are needed in case of maintenance?

The new organization of secondary education provides for a basic core common to all students, divided into four areas of knowledge (languages, mathematics, natural sciences and human and social sciences) that occupy 60% of the workload of the three years of secondary education, and the training itineraries, which correspond to 40% of the workload and are made up of optional subjects, with the aim of allowing the student to choose to deepen in one of the four areas of knowledge or even through professional technical training.

Six years later, the private schools organized themselves according to the interests of the community they serve and the units of the S system articulated the curriculum of the Sesi schools with the technical training provided by Senai in person, but the implementation in public schools, responsible for 85% of enrollments, seems fragile, given the implementation difficulties.

Although there is no national diagnosis on the implementation of the new secondary education, the news is not encouraging, with cases of use of materials from self-help books, restriction of training itineraries available to students only in the humanities area, fragmentation of the curriculum in multiple disciplines without proper integration between them and the basic core, assignment of classes to teachers without prior training and the use of distance learning (EAD) without proper regulation, something that would be unthinkable in a good private school. There is also an incompatibility between the proposed number of hours and the organization of night teaching.

I understand that the revocation path is not adequate, however some actions are urgent. The MEC (Ministry of Education) took the first step by proposing a broad dialogue with education secretaries, students, educators, universities and organizations linked to education, but other measures could be taken, even to enrich the proposed dialogue.

It is essential to start now a broad diagnosis on the current stage of the reform so that we know if the right of choice of students in each state is guaranteed or not, if there are teachers trained for the existing disciplines, if there is curricular integration between the basic nucleus and the training itineraries and whether, as proposed, basic training does not exclude essential knowledge for students. Best practices in public networks should also be surveyed.

The implementation schedule defined by the Bolsonaro government should be reviewed, especially the new Enem. If the MEC is going to listen to society to propose eventual course corrections, it would be better to wait for them to prepare its assessment. It is also necessary to advance in the regulation of distance learning, in the definition of a minimum load for the areas of knowledge foreseen in the Base Nacional Comum Curricular and in the better definition of the framework of the training itineraries, which, according to a survey of this Sheetreaches more than 1,500 different disciplines.

Evaluating and correcting the course of public policies is an obligation of any government. May this be the path chosen by the MEC and not that of a justice of the peace of antagonistic narratives.