Expansão da pós-graduação e desigualdades regionais brasileiras: um estudo no contexto dos planos nacionais de pós-graduação

Abstract

This study has as central objective to analyze in the context of National grafuate plans, the expansion policy of the Brazilian stricto sensu graduate program and the regional inequalities, including historical, social, political and economic conditions for the institution and maintenance of disparities. The specific objectives that are unfolded in the sections of this dissertation, aim to understand the historical process of regional inequality related to education in Brazil- based on the theory of uneven and combined development; to analyze the objectives, goals and strategies of the National Postgraduate Plans concerning the expansion and regional inequality in postgraduate; to evidence how the expansion of the stricto sensu graduate program took place in the period 1998-2018 in the regions of Brazil, considering the distribution of Programs, Courses, Enrollments, Titles and Teachers, as well as the different Knowledge Areas. As Historical-Dialectical Materialism was adopted as the guiding method for this research, as it understands that the problems of education should not be understood as isolated phenomena, but as part of a totality of social relations that propel the world from its material production. The type of research carried out consists of Documentary Research with a quanti-qualitative approach, whose central primary sources are the five National Postgraduate Plans. As for the methodological procedures, were analyzed the PNPG's and the postgraduate growth data available in the CAPES Georeferenced Information System (GEOCAPES). The results indicate a considerable increase in the level of education in the North, Northeast and Midwest regions, historically placed on the margins of the process. It was found that in the period 1998-2018 these regions reached the greatest variations in the indicators used (Programs, Courses, Enrollments, Titles and Teachers) compared with the other regions and in Brazil. However, in terms of absolute numbers, the North, Northeast and Midwest had the lowest numbers of participation in Post-Graduation stricto sensu, in the same period, showing the permanence of regional inequality. In relation to the expansion via indicator after knowledge, a higher percentage was observed in all regions in the fields focused on applied production and a smaller proportion of the areas of basic science and human health, revealing the logic of subordination of knowledge to the market. It concludes that, although the advances are undeniable in the face of data, the problems of a society immersed in Capitalism can only be solved by the rupture of the capitalist system through collective and organized construction.