O ensino superior no Brasil : contexto atual e mobilidade

Abstract

The thesis focus on the analysis of the current context of Brazilian higher education, especially on the PNEs (National Education Plans), as well as the main determinants of student mobility. It is believed that the higher education challenges must be understood and addressed in the larger picture of inequalities that characterize the country's education system at all levels. Therefore, the structure of this thesis is proposed through three essays. The first essay examines recent policies in higher education, which include expanding the supply of vacancies, the creation and internalization of higher education institutions and the transition from a decentralized to a centralized selection mechanism. In this sense, it was observed that the offer of vacancies was expanded predominantly within the the private sector and taken to peripheral regions of the country, such as the North and Northeast. The internalization of education and the centralization of forms of access have positive repercussions, such as greater mobility in the national territory and lower costs for candidates, however, have limitations, such as the difficulty to coordinate and to fund such an examination. In the future, significant changes in technology, such as Enem Digital and Distance Learning, are expected to occur, as well as the growth of private investments in federal institutes and universities as a result of "Future-se" program. Given the complexity of Brazilian higher education in such a plural and specific socio-spatial context, the second essay deals with students spatial mobility using a gravitational model in order to identify the main factors determining the mobility of Brazilian university students. In the results, distance had an unfavorable effect on mobility, related to the fact that admission costs are related to the increased distance between regions of origin and destination institutions. Locations with lower living costs and smaller university centers (campi) were positively associated with mobility, as well as greater diversification of courses offered and obtaining non-repayable funding. Finally, the third research essay examines another facet of student mobility, which concerns the transition between graduate and teaching careers in Brazilian universities, to determine whether academic inbreeding occurs and whether it affects scientific production. In this sense, we used the number of publications in international and national journals, as well as the number of doctoral students oriented as proxies for scientific research and document teaching and research activities in research groups. By applying a negative binomial hurdle model, no-inbreds publish at least one international article, more national articles, and have the lowest number of doctoral guidelines. However, it is not possible to categorically declare that no-inbreds are more productive nor those who use doctoral students as teachers, if they are practiced as harmful. Different scientific areas have different disciplinary and diffusion cultures, as well as the brazilian academic market job, that goes through a transitional phase.