Expansão e interiorização da pós-graduação stricto sensu da Universidade do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte: avanços, limites e contradições

Abstract

The present study aims to analyze the process of postgraduate expansion and interiolization stricto sensu of the Universidade do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte (UERN), from 2008 to 2018, placing it in the national postgraduate policy context and identifying the institutional, economic and political factors that were decisive for this expansion. It is based on the principle that, in the context of the globalization and productive restructuring process, education, at all its levels, came to be seen as a vector of economic development and as fundamental element for the insertion of countries in the globalized world. In this context, postgraduate studies assume a central role in government agendas of some countries for being considered the locus of knowledge production. In Brazil, in the 1990s, a reform was implemented in the State, aiming to meet the new capitalism demands, whose technical base assumed, at a world level, the paradigm of flexibility that had as its scope the accumulation of capital. As a result, influenced by international organizations, educational guidelines for higher education have become more flexible through the diversification and differentiation of institutions and the courses offered, with repercussions in all public universities. Thus, it is assumed, as a thesis, that the UERN stricto sensu postgraduate expansion and interiorization policy has been implemented through diversified strategies, such as: teacher training, the consolidation of research groups and public partnerships. However, it has limits and contradictions, both internal and external, which influence the consolidation of graduate studies in the institution. As a theoretical-methodological framework, the approach of historical-dialectical materialism was used, which sought to unveil reality from the perspective of totality, through its multiple determinations. As technical procedures, bibliographic review, document analysis, statistical data analysis and semi-structured interviews were used. This research results show that there has been a significant expansion of postgraduate courses and programs at UERN and this expansion took place beyond the institution's headquarters, reaching other locations in the RN State and promoting the postgraduation studies’ interiorization. However, there is a great expansion of academic master's degrees and a vast concentration of programs classified as concept 3 in the “Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior” (CAPES) evaluation. Even with these conditions, the UERN postgraduation program has contributed to the institution consolidation as a university that articulates the research, teaching and extension tripod, with the masters and doctoral training in different areas of knowledge, in addition to contributing to the social aspects’ improvement in the regions where it is located by promoting the interiorization of this level of education in the state.