UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO TOCANTINS (CAMPUS DE ARRAIAS): HISTÓRIA, EXPANSÃO E PERSPECTIVAS ATUAIS.

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study the object of the process of expansion and internalization of Higher Education in the State of Tocantins, more specifically the Arraias campus. It has as time frame the effective date of the Federal University of Tocantins-UFT, in 2003, to the present day, 2013. At the core of these policies is highlighted the effectiveness of one of its campuses, the campus of Arraias City, explaining their specificities, the nature, the character, the history and current perspectives of the process of expansion and restructuring of this campus. The objectives of this research is to understand, from the history of the creation of the Federal Public University in the city of Arraias, its consolidation as a public space and integrated federal system of higher education; to analyze if the UFT, campus Arraias, has provided to the professionals who are graduated in it a more expanded form of the reality in which they operate; as well as to identify which changes the performance of the university has brought to the city of Arraias and region, the contributions and punctual difficulties during 2003-2013. Accordingly, the results of the research show that there are important contributions of undergraduate courses in pedagogy and mathematics campus Stingrays, the opportunity for a graduate qualification and the lower classes and working in the region, through the dissemination of knowledge, training of teachers to act basic education in regional and encouraging research. The relevance of this study becomes evident by the concern focused on understanding the strategic importance of this campus to the political and social development in Southeastern Tocantins, with the driving shaft of the National Regional Development, the investment in education and public higher education, internalization and Reuni. To carry out this research, we adopted the methodology of the case study with qualitative approach, using multiple data collection procedures, such as documentary sources, a field notebook and semi-structured interviews and the analysis of several documents is here understood as the possibility of joint between the empirical and the theoretical.