A política de formação inicial de professores para educação básica no Instituto Federal do Pará: conexões com a interiorização, a democratização e a singularidade da Amazônia paraense

Abstract

The object of study of this dissertation is the Brazilian policy of initial teacher training for Basic Education. The objective is to analyze the specificities of initial teacher training promoted by the Federal Institute of Pará (IFPA), in order to reveal the existence of a correlation with the government policy of interiorization, democratization of education, and the singularity of the Pará Amazon. Methodologically, the study, with a qualitative approach, was based on historical- dialectical materialism, having totality, contradiction, and mediation as methodological categories, and interiorization, democratization, and singularity as content categories. Technical procedures included bibliographic, documentary, and field research, using semi-structured interviews with systemic coordinators of higher education and teacher training programs. We discussed initial teacher training in Brazil and in the Pará Amazon, aiming to understand its historical and legal configuration, and also its correlation with the main political and economic transformations in the country. We approached teacher training as an experience of the CEFET and Federal Institutes, apprehending the specificities of each institutionality, as well as the institution's role as a promoter of local, regional, and national socioeconomic development. And we revealed the specificities of the teacher training courses offered by IFPA, investigating the correlation of initial teacher training with the policy of interiorization of Professional and Technological Education, democratization of education, and the singularity of the Pará Amazon. The results reveal that the policy of initial teacher training for Basic Education at IFPA occurs amidst disputes between capital, subsidized by international organizations' guidelines, and local social movements, which demand public, free, quality education that respects the diversity of the Pará Amazon. The materialization of training at IFPA reinforces the principle that the material base, from the perspective of capital hegemony over labor, determines public policies, resulting in precarious teacher training. The training is connected to the interiorization of EPT expansion, through the installation of campuses throughout the Pará Amazon, despite challenges to its materialization, including the vast territorial extension, ecosystem diversity, and Amazonian cost. The training is correlated with democratization of education, as it materializes through the offer of teacher training courses in isolated action by IFPA or through partnerships with municipalities, through Programs (UAB, PARFOR, PROCAMPO), with CAPES funding, guaranteeing the right to education for Amazonian peoples, in the locations (or near) where they are installed. And the training presents a connection with the singularity of the Pará Amazon, expressed not only in the incorporation of territorial specificities in the curricula of teacher training courses, but also in meeting the needs of the Amazonian population.