Companies, schools are joining forces across country

07/04/2022

---

Ana Inoue — Foto: Carol Carquejeiro/Valor

The partnership between the public and private sector, which specialists see as key for the expansion of vocational education, is starting to accelerate and deepen in Brazil in strategic fields like information technology and renewable energy. Experiments conducted in Araripina (Pernambuco) and in the state of São Paulo show programs that bring together companies and public schools in projects for training more in line with reality, curricula that can be replicated across the country, or programs that establish seamless transition between vocational and higher education.

Technology, creative economy and sustainability, including innovation in the power generation mix, are among the priority fields for which it is necessary to train young people with the ability to create and think, said Ana Inoue, head of Itaú Educação e Trabalho, the education and work initiative led by the Brazilian bank’s foundation.

She sees vocational education as a way to generate labor capable of meeting demands. Policies and programs involving public schools, which account for 88% of high school enrollments, are key, Ms. Inoue said. Partnerships with the productive sector, she said, can provide not only greater opportunity for professional practice and supply of updated and state-of-the-art equipment for teaching, but also constant dialogue with public bodies to create curricular articulation that involves training more in line with the reality of each school and region.

With a population estimated by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) at 85,000 people, Araripina, in the northwestern region of Pernambuco, joined in 2020 the map of cities with more partnerships between the public and private sectors for the development of vocational education.

Carla Chiamareli, knowledge management manager at Itaú Educação e Trabalho, said that the program developed at Pedro Muniz Falcão, a full secondary school in Araripina, considered the strong regional inclination to wind and solar power, in a project that started with a dialogue between representatives of the state government. The Votorantim Institute, currently linked to the Auren group, continued with the entry of Schneider Electric, and now draws other companies in several forms of partnership.

The program, Ms. Chiamareli said, involved the joint construction of a curriculum in the field with the concern of generating vocational training for the entire renewable power production chain. The implementation of the curriculum also considers employability not only in generation companies, but also in user companies, paving the way for entrepreneurship as well, with the formation of professionals qualified to work in the supply of goods and services.

The project stood out for having a curriculum put together from the demands of the productive sector, which meant a change in relation to a model of vocational education often disassociated from the labor market, said Ricardo Marques Jacó, the school’s principal. Currently there are four classes of about 45 students each – two in the first year and two in the second year – in the renewable energy vocational course, which also includes high school. The school, he says, took advantage of the framework developed to also offer an evening vocational course for those who have already completed high school. Currently, there are three classes with about 30 students each.

Born in Araripina, Mr. Jacó expects that the new courses will contribute to change the profile of the labor force that works in the productive chain generated by wind and solar power, increasing the generation of jobs for the local population. Today, most of the professionals come from other regions, he said.

According to Rômulo Marçal, corporate director at Auren, there is a great opportunity in the sector in the region of Araripina, where the company runs a wind farm. He said that public information sources indicate that within a radius of 200 kilometers from the Pernambuco city there are about 1,800 renewable power projects – mainly solar and wind.

Mr. Jacó recalled that there are job opportunities not only among generation companies and manufacturers of power equipment, but also in user companies in several industries. The use of renewable power has been expanding in the region, he said, and many companies – among them those in the city’s plaster industry and food industry – have been investing in their own plants, which will also demand more professionals in the field.

The training resulting from the vocational course is expected to generate better pay for the population. In 2020, the average monthly wage in the municipality was 1.6 minimum wages, which put it in 93rd place among the 185 cities of Pernambuco and in the 4,400th position among 5,570 municipalities in the country, according to IBGE. The proportion of employed people in relation to the total population was 9.4%, also two years ago.

Mr. Marçal highlights Auren’s contribution for the creation of a curriculum for the renewable power course. Fifteen volunteers from the company took part with the concern to create a course that connects to digital technology and that can also develop the necessary skills for the corporate world.

The objective of adopting the curriculum is to develop general skills, such as the ability to solve problems, initiative, creativity, logical reasoning, flexibility and adaptability, said Mr. Chiamareli, with Itaú Educação e Trabalho. Another concern was to create a comprehensive renewable power curriculum that, besides wind and solar energy, also reaches other sources, such as hydro and biomass. “The idea is to give scale to the curriculum so that it can be put in place in all states.” At least six states have already shown interest, she said.

In order for vocational education to be expanded with the capacity to meet existing demands, Ana Inoue points out, it is necessary to transform the way vocational education is seen. It is necessary, she added, to leave behind the “last century” vision. “Vocational education was created as something for the poor and underprivileged, and was less comprehensive, less emancipatory, and more restricted.” It was education aimed at those who would not have the opportunity to go to university, Ms. Inoue said. Vocational training does not have to be “definitive in the young person’s life.” Instead, it must pave the way for “a new development process that needs to take place.”

In this sense, she said, it is necessary to create public policies and programs in a way that encourage vocational education students to move forward with that in higher education, and even adding value to the student’s previous training.

The Multiplatform Development Technologist course currently offered by 12 Technology Colleges (Fatecs) in São Paulo seeks to achieve this. Brasscom, an association that brings together 86 business groups in the fields of digital technologies and Information and Communication Technology, also took part in the formulation of curriculum of this course, which is the result of a partnership between Itaú Educação e Trabalho and Centro Paula Souza (CPS) – an autonomous body that coordinates São Paulo’s public vocational schools and Fatecs.

Cacau Lopes, implementation and development manager at Itaú Educação e Trabalho, points out that the work with Brasscom also involved the review of career paths for vocational education. Working with an association has allowed the curricula to reflect the various companies that operate in the technology sector with different focuses and languages, and often competing with each other.

*By Marta Watanabe — São Paulo

Source: Valor International

https://valorinternational.globo.com/