O uso da educação online como alternativa para os programas de pós-graduação stricto sensu no Brasil

Abstract

So that a nation can be considered as developed, one of the major targets of its government should be the constant investments in education over the time. In Brazil, a country with continental dimensions, the offer of education for everybody is not an easy task at all. The successive governments in this country have put into practice several measures in all teaching levels, in each of the 5 (five) country s regions, mainly aiming a reduction in the existent asymmetry between them. In the case of post-graduation stricto sensu, essential for the high level human resources formation that will be responsible for the scientific and technological development of the country, only 0.06% of the Brazilian population holds a doctor s degree, 0.20% of university master and 0.01% of professional master. The utilization of the distance education (DE), especially the online education at this teaching level, can help the minimization of the existent asymmetries once it brakes the barriers of time and space which is existent in education. Having exposed the above, this work has the objective of analyzing how the university coordinators and the students of a post-graduation program stricto sensu blended learning feel the utilization of the online education. For such purpose it was conducted a research in the Programa de Pós-Graduação Profissional em Gestão e Avaliação da Educação Pública (PPGP), recognized by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). The applied method in this research is the phenomenological and the research strategy is the case study based on Yin (2005) works. The data analysis, performed with the employment of documental and content analysis techniques, have evidenced among other details, that the PPGP coordination had the course proposal approved since it met the implicit established criterions, but in what the online education is concerned, PPGP has been mainly ruling based on the know how developed with the offer of graduation courses by the Universidade Aberta do Brasil (UAB), as a consequence of the lack of specific orienting criterions in the Documento de Área. The coordination is engaged in strategies development for the program consolidation, as for example, with an editorial project creation. In what PPGP s students are concerned, it was verified that the blended learning regime was not considered as a lure for course option, being just the facilitator access, mainly because people in general cannot abandon their jobs, move to other cities, opt to leave the family, among others, to attend a post-graduation course. The students are very happy with the course, principally with the possibility of applying the theoretical concepts developed for the betterment of the professional practice, but they have mentioned some improvements needed as for example, the course subjects reduction number, higher incentive for the scientific production and University campus wireless access during the corporal presence. But it s worth stressing that this course has been launched very recently, being less than one year old, but soon it will be evaluated in a comparative form according to the same criterions for the personal attendance courses. This is very salutary as it allows keeping the same quality standards already reached, but it should be considered, this course mode specificities and with the time, the improvement of the evaluation system, so that it is taken into account in a more precise way the evolution of the present Brazilian post-graduation stricto sensu graduation courses.