Against the world, Brazil reduces graduates in strategic areas

Contrary to the world trend, the number of graduates from Brazilian universities in most areas known as STEM (Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Computing) has fallen over a decade. From 67,000 graduates in this area in 2009, the number plummeted to 60,000 in 2019.

These fields are strategic both for the job market and for scientific innovations, and the drop in the number of specialists further harms the country in the race for the economy of the future.

The point outside the curve was the area that includes engineering, where the number of graduates tripled in the period.

The survey, carried out by the consulting firm IDados based on data from Inep, shows that public universities, in particular, lost their share in the number of graduates in priority areas for the job market, despite an increase in the total number of Brazilians with higher education in most part of the races.

In 6 out of 8 knowledge sectors analyzed, they had a drop in the percentage of graduates compared to private institutions.

In the comparison between 2009 and 2019, in the area of ​​health and well-being, for example, the percentage of graduates from these institutions fell from 20.7% to 16.4%, while the share of the private sector rose from 79.3% to 83.6%. In agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary, the public university lost almost 12 percentage points, from 59.2% to 47.8%.

Even when there was a significant increase in the number of graduates —such as those in the area of ​​engineering, production and construction, which rose from 21,400 to 61,100 in the period—, the share of public institutions dropped from 38.2% to 24.5%.

The country’s errant performance in training professionals focused mainly on science and computing goes against the grain of the rest of the world. A recent study by columnist sheet Cecilia Machado, in partnership with researchers Laísa Rachter, Fábio Schanaider and Mariana Stussi, used different databases to map STEM workers in Brazil.

In the third quarter of last year, the number of workers in STEM roles was 1.5 million, while the rest were over 7.6 million. Meanwhile, in the US economy, 10 million (7%) occupy these roles.

According to FGV Ibre (Brazilian Institute of Economics, Fundação Getulio Vargas) researcher Fernando Veloso, the effort that developed countries have made to increase investments in the training of workers of the future is visible.

“There is an attempt to prepare future generations and also how to requalify those who are already in the job market. In Brazil, the most recent experience was with Pronatec, but it had results far below expectations.”

He points out that programs in which the government tries to determine areas of training tend to perform worse than those in which there is a dialogue with companies to facilitate the student’s employability in the future in roles with clearer demand.

Veloso also considers that there is often an excess of academicism in public higher education institutions. “Teaching is often more research-oriented and less connected to the job market. An alternative, like what happens in North American community colleges, would be to try to make the public university more flexible, without losing quality. “

“We hear a lot about the low productivity of Brazilian workers, so there could be clearer guidance from the federal government to advance in these key areas”, says researcher Guilherme Hirata, from IDados.

Amauri Fragoso de Medeiros, from Andes-SN (National Union of Teachers of Higher Education Institutions) and professor at the Federal University of Campina Grande (PB), believes that generating knowledge only with a view to supplying the job market is a fallacious question. .

“The market is just a cell of society, not the whole society. Furthermore, what is observed is that private universities take the poorest sections of the population, in the illusion of buying with education an improvement in the quality of life that did not come.”

For Claudia Massei, Siemens executive in Germany, in addition to training more professionals focused on the professions of the future, Brazil needs to develop a job market that absorbs more professionals after graduation.

“On the private side, many large companies that are in Brazil do not have research centers in the country. In public policy, there is a lack of strategy to define the professional who will be demanded in five or ten years.”

Regarding the prospect of an increase in the supply of vacancies in the STEM areas, Elizabeth Guedes, from Anup (National Association of Private Universities), who is also the sister of the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, believes that this should happen in a forceful way in the next few years. years old.

“Brazil’s social and economic future depends on the training of professionals prepared to face the new challenges of a world where value chains are interconnected”, she says.

Public universities cannot keep pace with private ones

The public university could not keep pace with the private ones, even when they managed to increase the number of places, says Hirata, from IDados.

“Depending on the area of ​​training, the reduction was considerable in the proportion of those leaving the public university. The expansion of private universities was encouraged by financing programs and tuition discounts, which greatly facilitated the increase in diplomas.”

According to Adriano Senkevics, a researcher at Inep and a doctor in education from USP (University of São Paulo), the period from 2009 to 2019 comprises two opposite moments for higher education: what goes until 2015 is a new look at the public university, for through Reuni (Program to Support Restructuring and Expansion Plans for Federal Universities), and support for private education, with Fies and ProUni.

“Throughout the expansion of higher education, however, the public sector lost space, while the private sector grew at a strong pace, absorbing a larger mass of young people over time and increasing its relative participation”, he says.

He considers that the private sector’s policy of offering cheaper courses aimed at the job market weighs in on this performance difference, while the public has more expensive careers that depend on more specialized professors. “The qualitative difference between the two systems also imposes different expansion rates.”

Starting in 2015, when the country entered recession, both systems entered a bitter phase of stagnation and loss of resources. On the side of public universities, the period was one of meager resources, a scenario that persists to this day.

At the end of last year, a report by the newspaper O Globo showed, based on data from the Federal Budget Panel, that resources for discretionary spending (used to pay for water, electricity, scholarships, research supplies, among other items) were in 2021 at the lowest level since 2004, even with twice as many students at public universities.

In the case of the private ones, the brake on expansion was due to the difficulty that part of the students has had to pay the monthly fees. “The private sector felt this economic downturn, with the crisis of 2015 and 2016 and now with the pandemic, and has only been breathing through distance learning courses as a cost reduction strategy”, says Senkevics.

According to the 2020 Higher Education Census, there were 2,457 higher education institutions in Brazil. Of these, 2,153 (87.6%) were private and 304 (12.4%) were public. And 3 out of 4 students were in private centers.

Massei, from Siemens, agrees that the public university, due to the better quality of education, usually trains qualified professionals to work in different areas, while a large part of the expressive increase in students of private courses was due to commercial reasons.

“In Brazil, most of the private higher education system ends up being driven by profit, and the public system is always very dependent on the budget and government guidance.”

Medeiros, from Andes-SN, says that, although universities have autonomy to manage the number of vacancies and courses, this freedom is limited by the lack of resources.

“In recent years, despite Reuni, there has been a clear turnaround in government investments in the private sector, which explains a good part of the loss of public university participation in some sectors.”

The Andes spokesperson also highlights the fundamental role that public institutions play in the development of research, well ahead of the private sector.

The connection of private institutions with the job market makes them respond more quickly to the demands for certain training areas, counters Elizabeth Guedes, president of Anup (National Association of Private Universities).

“Theoretically, the speeds should be the same, since we enjoy the same autonomy. But we always look at current vacancies and trends for the future, considering that professions are continuously changing and not meeting this demand is to allocate our student to unemployment”, he says.

Asked about the loss of participation of public universities in the number of graduates, the difficulties in opening vacancies and courses and the reduction in the universities’ budget, the MEC (Ministry of Education) had not answered the questions until the publication of this report.