A Reforma do Estado: Qual a Natureza da Política Educacional nos Anos 1990?
Over the last years, educational policies have been modified with regard to discussed items, and certain issues agreed upon by educators during the 1980s have been redefined. Current research analyzes the reforms brought about by the State that affected the educational politics in the 1990s, and which contributed towards forms of funding and administering the educational system. The neo-liberal reforms adopted justified the responsibility of the State for the established crisis and demanded reforms in the State and in its institutions. It was thus expected that distortions would be corrected and efficiency generated so that Brazil would be inserted within capitalist production. Current research highlights issues attributed to decentralization which foregrounded government policies that deprived people of their rights and somewhat constructed the consistencies of the movement. In fact, its central bases include the rationing of the federal government’s resources to adopt a decentralization strategy with the ensuing outsourcing, thereby shunning autonomy and democratic participation.
REFORMA DO ESTADO E AS POLÍTICAS PARA A EDUCAÇÃO SUPERIOR NO BRASIL NOS ANOS 90
This article aims at discussing the federal policies for higher education implemented in Brazil in the 1990s. It assumes that such policies are based on socio-political choices and interests linked to the changes occurring in the contemporary Brazilian scene, changes that have deep historical roots, which emerge in the process of reformation of the Brazilian State. This situation implies alterations in the field of public policies, and more particularly in that of social policies, since the on-going official proposals and projects are characterized by a decrease of the role of State. The borders between public and private affairs have become increasingly blurred in a process detrimental to the former. The contradictions in the federal policies for higher education are analyzed here, as well as their results as for the following fields: institutional diversification and differentiation; assessment criteria, broadening and privatization of this level of education.
Initial Teacher Training: the French view
ABSTRACT This paper, against the background of trends in the development of initial teacher training in Europe as a whole, identifies and explains some of the recent, radical reforms which were introduced in France by a socialist government. These include the need to raise the status and the competence of the teaching profession; the creation of new teacher‐training institutions of university status (Instituts universitaires de formation des maitres); the introduction of common entry qualifications at degree level for both primary and secondary levels; the harmonisation and the extension to 2 years of the post‐degree teacher‐training course and the increase in emphasis placed on professional training, both theoretical and practical. These reforms provoked a storm of protest and an examination of the reasons for this reveals a multiplicity of crucial questions which have far‐reaching implications.