Abstract:

In Brazil, in 2022, there was a great expansion and investment in short-term courses called Initial and Continuing Education (FIC). This kind of course aims to train, improve and update the students who desire to enter or to return quickly and efficiently to the labor market. For this reason, many programs have received support and endorsement from the Brazilian Federal government, through the Ministry of Education (MEC), to implement these presential course offerings in various public institutions across the country, such as Qualifica Mais Progredir, Qualifica Mais EnergIF, Emprega mais and FIC. Having in mind the importance of these courses for the development of education and for improving the employability of the population, analyses were made to compare the profile of the students associated to each of the programs and the students’ advance regarding the course offered. To this end, aspects related to the quality of the course offered and the perception of the different publics of students participating in the offer were considered. The Course Monitoring and Evaluation System (SAAS) was used for data collection, which enabled the structuring and sending of questionnaires to respondents. The online questionnaires are divided by dimensions, namely: Formatting and Implementation; Infrastructure; People; Laboratories; Library; Didactic Material; Pedagogical Staff. In addition, SAAS supports open feedback through comments, criticisms and suggestions. Concerning users’ privacy, to preserve the evaluators’ identity, the responses are recorded anomaly. The SAAS development team schedules the system to send assessment invitations as soon as the course is completed, with the possibility of resending these invitations to achieve a higher percentage of participation of registered students. The collected results showed that, in 2022, the course with the highest concentration of students was the Individual Microentrepreneur (MEI). In addition, there was a significant increase in the number of incoming students between the periods from 2022/1 to 2022/2, reaching almost 400%. When analyzing the qualitative responses, it was found that the graduates were acting as autonomous professionals and graduating on courses in the same area. From the perspective of the programs, it was noticed that the graduates of the Qualifica Mais Progredir courses had this connection more evidently in the FIC courses taken.

Keywords:

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