Abstract:

The Brazilian federal government has been investing heavily in short-term courses called Basic and Continued Education (FIC). This kind of short-term course aims to train, improve and update the student who desires to enter or to return quickly and efficiently to the labor market. This teaching style is characterized by the constant modernization of programs and curriculum, considering, whenever possible, the demands of the labor market. As a result, students learn new skills and update their knowledge focused on performing specific functions or activities. When taking a FIC course, the student has the possibility to improve their skills in the chosen area for a short period of time, where the workload varies around 160h to 1500h, in total. Particularities of the courses define the target audience: some are open to the community; others are aimed at students with different levels of education. These courses are promoted by the Professional and Technological Education Department (SETEC), from Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC). Course offerings are carried out through institutions in the federal, state, district and municipal networks of professional and technological education. At the same time, professional and technological private institutions and schools qualified in the National Program for Access to Technical Education and Employment (Pronatec), are able to promote these courses. To accomplish requirements regarding course quality, SETEC also invests in the Course Monitoring and Evaluation System (SAAS). With the help of this system, it was started in 2021 the examination and appraisal of the FIC courses offerings to investigate further negative and positive points of the completed courses. This article presents a review of information about arrangement and implementation, infrastructure, personnel, virtual environment, pedagogical material, and offerings, among other characteristics of these courses. The obtained results consider the completed distance education courses and also the traditional face-to-face ones among the two 2021 semesters and the first of 2022. The analysis was classified by regions aiming to point out vulnerabilities in specific locations. It is important to emphasize that these analyses allow the SETEC staff to understand the strategy of distributing resources, which increase the success of the course offering independently from location where the course is provided.

Keywords:

Education, Quality, Evaluation, Experiences, Short-term Courses.