Gestão de qualidade em educação : a experiência do Programa Primeira Infância Melhor

Abstract

The main goal of the present study was to investigate the particular aspects in the profile of the local city managers of the Better First Childhood Program known in Portuguese by the acronym PIM, picking one City whose quality history in the execution of such program was considered satisfactory, as well as one City whose history was unsatisfactory. The methodology used was the action-research, due to the insertion of the master-to-be in the technical assistance to the Cities involved, because of her participation as technical consultant of the Program. The most directly involved people with the program City Mayors, Health, Education and Social Assistance secretaries were interviewed. The interview was carried out based on a standard questionnaire (developed and approved of by the Scientific Commission of the Post Graduation Program in Education), and the transcriptions of the interviews were related to the history of the Program for each City involved. By means of the research, we tried to learn the relevant aspects of the interviewees profile, aiming to identify the differences in their profiles as a way to analyze the approach of their sensitization by State Technical Group of the Program aiming to, in this way, improve the quality of the execution of the Program in the cities and, therefore, the quality of the service provided to the families, as well as the result of the interventions.The investigation of the research demonstrated that the agents of the City whose performance was satisfactory had a greater identification with the cause of the Program. The study ratified the importance given by the master-to-be (due to her professional experience within the Program) to the role played by the management of the Program showing, therefore, the importance of maintaining the investment on sensitizing and preparing the local City managers to support the actions of the Program network consistently.