A reforma da educação profissional: a dualidade assumida

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze, on the one hand, the institutionalization of the dissociation between secondary and professional education put into effect by Presidential Decree nr. 2.208/1997, under Fernando Henrique Cardoso s administration and, on the other hand, the proposal to integrate both teaching modalities, under Luís Inácio Lula da Silva s administration, put into effect by Decree nr. 5.154/2004. Our intention is to examine labour both as creative activity of individuals and central category of their humanization process, that is, to understand how the transformation from a biological to a social being occurs, through the mediation of labour and nature. Furthermore, we intend to apprehend how the capitalist mode of production transforms the creativity of labour through a process which comprehends the relation between things, the object prevailing over the subject, as well as to perceive the school as an instrument for shaping the individuals to new social relations of production and breaking up through polytechnic education the alienation imposed by capitalism. This research also discusses the historical elements which have determined educational policies directed at professional education and their relation to society in the historical context of Brazilian education. Finally, it exposes the guidelines of professional education reforms carried out during Lula and FHC administrations, particularly focusing those which implied the structural dissociation between secondary and professional education, disclosing the historical, political and social process in which they originated.