Teaching work in the National Youth Inclusion Program (PROJOVEM URBANO)

from praxis under construction to the reification of educators

Abstract

The creation of the National Youth Policy (PNJ) consolidated the democratization of access to elementary education, rescuing the debate about the training of youth and adult educators in Brazil. In 2005, the federal government instituted the initial and continuing training program to adapt teachers to the pedagogical proposal of the National Youth Inclusion Program (Projovem Urbano). In fact, there was a gap to be filled, given the need to modify the literacy profile historically perpetuated in EJA. In this direction, the article investigated the new meanings of teaching work, specifically, initial and continuing education. For this, we resort to dialectical historical materialism, in order to reveal the invisible threads between the right to education and the State's duty to educate. The result of the qualitative research carried out through a bibliographic survey and documental analysis points to different realities, reaffirming the precariousness of teaching work in the face of the demands of the “polyvalent educator”; light training; of political-electoral criteria for choosing teachers, etc. Notably, the forms of appropriation of the program by the “small policy” reinforced the gap between theory and practice, that is, the objectives of the program and the social need of teaching workers, reflecting on the social quality of education for young and adult workers.