The Pedagogical Provisions of the Public Policy of Professional Education in Initial and Continuing Training Courses:

a case study on the First Step Project - Young Apprentice

Abstract

In this article we assume the objective of researching the pedagogical dispositions present in the regulation and execution of the public policy of Brazilian professional education, more specifically in courses of initial and continuous training of workers since the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988. We identify two fundamental pedagogical perspectives (one functionalist-instrumental and another humanist-political) approaches work-oriented education. Such perspectives, although based on the same precepts of individual freedom and appreciation of critical reason, indicate different understandings of work and subject. For the empirical analysis of the proposed question we chose to develop a case study in the First Step Project - Young Apprentice. This project represents a comprehensive action of professional education (28 municipalities of Ceará) executed by the Government of the State of Ceará, but respecting regulatory guidelines at the federal level, the Law of Learning (2000). The objective of the research is to verify how the different pedagogical perspectives identified in the theoretical study are carried out in this project. We used official sources, records of archives and three semi-structured interviews with managers of this public policy as sources of evidence. In these investigations we verified the coexistence and complementarity of both pedagogical perspectives in the regulation and execution of the research project.