Towards a Social Formation of Engineers

Criticism of the New Engineering Curriculum Guidelines

Abstract

The new National Curricular Guidelines for the Engineering Undergraduate Course are a recent achievement of the governmental, industrial and academic sectors in Brazil. The broad agreement obtained reveals the existence of a consensual perspective of the society that, although not explained in the normative text, appears in a self-evident way. The new guidelines seem to solve several formative's endemic problems, while are pointing to other demands arising from the current reality, which requires the formation of more and better engineers through, among other actions, the development of soft skills. This article proposes a critical discussion in the space established between the model of society implicitly considered by the guidelines and the demands for a broad social formation of the engineers, in order to promote the adequate development of these competencies. It is argued that, without a broad social formation, the formation of the engineer can help to consolidate a stunted cognitive mode, preventing National Engineering from promoting its own paths. It is concluded about the need for a social formation that encourages the emergence of engineering inventiveness as a way to expand the possibilities of promoting alternative ways of life from the hegemonic one that, implicitly, the new guidelines promote.