THE OFFER OF TECHNICAL COURSES CONCURRENT AND SUBSEQUENT TO HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION IN FEDERAL INSTITUTES: AN ANALYSIS OF INDICATORS IN THE NEOLIBERAL CONTEXT

Abstract

The Federal Institutes have become, in recent decades, one of the main public policies for offering Professional and Technological Education in Brazil, allowing the training of several young people and adults in technical courses of the Federal Network of Professional and Technological Education (Rede Federal). The objective of this article was to analyze the provision of technical courses concomitant with and subsequent to secondary education at Federal Institutes, by investigating indicators available on the Nilo Peçanha Platform, considering advances in neoliberal policies. The theoretical and methodological contribution was based on Historical and Dialectic Materialism and used the work category to establish mediations with the object of study. Furthermore, document analysis became the data collection instrument of the Nilo Peçanha Platform. The data presented revealed the significant presence of technical courses concomitant and subsequent to secondary education at Federal Institutes, through the high number of courses offered and vacancies offered in comparison to integrated secondary education. However, certain weaknesses of these teaching modalities also stood out, which presented lower indicators of active enrollment and high school dropout rates. Finally, the article sought to highlight data on technical modalities concomitant with and subsequent to secondary education as public policy instruments in the educational context of neoliberalism. Data that is little debated in the literature and leaves these modalities in a “limbo” in the field of professional and technological education.