Higher education in Brazil: new configurations and old challenges

Abstract

The work presents, from a philosophical and educational perspective, ananalysis and reflection on the current situation of public higher educationin Brazil, showing not only the large and ongoing process conducted bythe State of its organizational and administrative reconfiguration, but alsothe ambiguous underlying educational policy for this process. For thesereasons, it incorporates legal formulations and outlines some governmentalinitiatives that have sought to implement a permanent university reformpertaining to the suitability of higher education requirements of thesocietary capitalist neoliberal model, which implemented by the Brazilianelite during this period in history. It then goes on to clarify the fundamentaldilemma experienced by Brazilian society, represented by the confrontationbetween an education based on the theory of human capital and an educationsystem inspired by the theory of human emancipation. Public highereducation is achieved in full by that ideological intent, taking into accountits importance in the construction of social life, be it in the workplace, sociallife or in culture. This would make it more difficult for public universitiesto construct their own educational policy, as this task would place themin a struggle that would go against their ideology.