Professional and Technological Education (EPT) in Brazil From the Perspective of Laws Nº 11,892/2008 and Nº 9,394/1996
Authors: Ferreira Cassiano de Andrade , Garcia André Spuri , Campos Rafaella Cristina , Silva Antônio Cleber da , Silva Ana Luiza de Carvalho 
Published: July 2024

Objective: Investigate the process of creation and development of EPT in Brazil from the perspective of Laws nº 11,892/2008 and nº 9,394/1996, going through concepts and applications of EPT in the Brazilian scenario.

Theoretical Framework: The acronym EPT has its origins in references to vocational education, more directly, referring to technical courses or any other whose main objective is to prepare the individual to take on a certain position in the job market (Dallabona; Fariniuk, 2016) . Thinking about this model of professional education, Law 11,892 of December 29, 2008 (Law creating IFETs), following the premises of Law No. 9,394/1996 (Education Guidelines and Bases Law), created IFETs, a general system of education that added the term “Technological” to its scope to indicate that this professional training could also occur at the undergraduate level, in Technology courses (Brasil, 2008).

Method: This literature review began with searches in national databases, such as “SciELO” and “Google Scholar”, using combinations of words such as “professional education”; “professional and technological education”; “EPT in Brazil”; “EPT history”; “difference between traditional education and EPT”; among other similar ones. Initially, the criterion was used to evaluate the titles of articles, books, or chapters found, followed by reading their summaries (Costa et al. 2016). As the works were studied more deeply, other relevant references were found in the body of the text that had not been found in the initial searches and they were incorporated into the bibliographic corpus of this article (Ferreira et al., 2017).

Results and Discussion: EPT in Brazil emerged in a cultural context under which the traditional contents of science, literature and humanities were recognized as being the only possible and viable means of education, normally aimed at a restricted part of the population, the Brazilian elite (Dallabona; Fariniuk , 2016). At that time, vocational education was seen as an instrumental aspect of work-oriented education, which did not provide access to higher education, unless the individual underwent a test of theoretical knowledge, which, in practice, represented humanist content. traditional schools (Kuenzer, 2007). With the aim of overcoming these gaps and breaking the historical structures of prejudice, the EPT was created in Brazil.

Research Implications: The implementation of IFETs in Brazil was successful and the fruits harvested from these actions were recognized by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) and the population. However, the federal education network has gone through a challenging process of permanence and precarious operating conditions in recent years. Given this, it is understood that the expansion of EPT needs to occur in quantitative and qualitative terms. To this end, the successful EPT experiences that the Federal Government left spread across the country should be used as a model, taking advantage of the growth potential; synergy; and the strength that IFEs have in Brazil (Dallabona & Fariniuk, 2016).

Originality/Value: The number of scientific research publications has evolved significantly in recent decades and the increase in productivity has stimulated the creation of technologies and methods for understanding scientific mechanisms (Lovatto et al., 2007). However, the high number of publications has become a problem in terms of selection and qualified analysis of literature on a given topic (Lovatto et al., 2007). Given this, without the intention of exhausting the discussion on the topic, this research summarized the process of creation and development of EPT in Brazil from the perspective of Laws nº 11,892/2008 and nº 9,394/1996, going through concepts and applications of this teaching model in the Brazilian context.