O modelo de Universidade Comunitária Regional (UCR) e a equidade na expansão da educação superior

Abstract

In Brazil, higher education institutions are classified by the National Education Guidelines and Bases Law (LDB) into three administrative categories: public, private (for-profit or non-profit), and community-based. One community-based institutional model is that of Regional Community Universities (UCRs), which emerged from local initiatives to offer higher education in the interior of the states of Rio Grande do Sul (RS) and Santa Catarina (SC). The beginning of the 21st century was marked by the expansion of higher education in Brazil, but it was still insufficient to achieve the goals of the National Education Plan. The UCRs advertise their model as an alternative for democratizing access to university, which should be assessed in terms of equity. The idea of ​​equity has traveled a long historical journey, from Aristotle's epieikeia to Rawls' fairness, until its encounter with higher education, with a sense of equalization, in the context of demands for rights, redistribution, recognition, and inclusion. Tristan McCowan (2016) understands equity in higher education systems from three dimensions: availability, accessibility and horizontality. A fair system must guarantee sufficient places, equal conditions of accessibility and quality among the different institutional models, modalities and courses (horizontal differentiation). In this context, the research question of this thesis is formulated as follows: given the evaluation of equity indicators from 2005 to 2019, in view of public induction policies, how can regional community universities contribute to the expansion of the Brazilian system, as an alternative to the federal and mercantile models? The general objective is to reveal the possibilities of contribution and the challenges of the regional community model for the Brazilian higher education system to expand with quality and equity. Twenty UCRs were identified in the states of RS and SC, and analyzed based on quantitative indicators of quality and equity in higher education, in a longitudinal and comparative manner with other models. Descriptive statistics were used on microdata from the Higher Education Census and the National Student Performance Exam, complemented by the Demographic Census, the National Household Sample Survey, and other sources. Data on institutional and course quality were generated and compared, as well as absolute, relative and contextual values ​​on the representation of less favored groups in the community, federal and mercantile models. The higher education system remained inequitable during the period analyzed, with fluctuations in the improvement and worsening of inequalities. The Quota Law led to improvements in indicators in federal institutions, but this was still insufficient to achieve equitable representation. The highest levels of contextual participation of disadvantaged groups were achieved in the mercantile model, supported by policies favorable to the private sector. However, these institutions performed worse in terms of quality. The combination of PROUNI and FIES was the most effective policy for rapidly expanding the participation of disadvantaged groups in UCRs, while at the same time these institutions improved their quality indicators. The study identified the contributions and challenges of the community model for equitable expansion. It is concluded that UCRs can be an alternative for the expansion of quality higher education with equity, as long as they are included in public policies to induce accessibility.