* Ph.D and M.A in Education from the Catholic University of São Paulo and also a lawyer. Professor/ Researcher in the Masters in Education Program at the Catholic University of Santos/ State of São Paulo
Brazilian universities, as well as educational system in a great deal of Latin American countries, are experiencing a significant process of transition. They are facing several challenges posed by new education policy settings, mainly higher education ones on the one hand and by social and economic changes on the other. In this paper some insights about this process during the past two decades in Brazil are stressed, emphasizing the results of education policies and their impact on higher education. We study the current state of Brazilian university during FHC (1994-2001) and Lula da Silva (2002-2006) governments. It is argued that the process through which Brazilian university is evolving requires a new rationale and purposes, in effect a change of paradigm to allow a better approach to university state and help designing innovative policies. The achievement of these proposals in education may be possible by adopting a transdisciplinary approach.
Key-words: University, paradigm, transdisciplinary, higher education, education policies“It is in rebellion rather than in resignation facing injustice that we affirm ourselves.”I. - INTRODUCTION
Paulo Freire
Over the past two decades in Latin American countries economic reforms have been established aiming to improve public sector framework and the management of public policies. In the educational area these reforms followed World Bank and International Monetary Fund guidelines. The World Bank proposals on educational sector and educational policies led governments to emphasize primary education addressing more funds to this sector and encourage building private education institutions in higher level education.
Since 1990s, especially during FHC government (1994-2001), important changes in higher education have been made with three main objectives: to increase the number of students in primary and secondary levels, to increase the number of private institutions and to improve the quality of teaching and research activities in these ones.
A global result of this policy setting is that it did not achieve its goals so far, although some outcomes were evident in recent years such as the significant increase of the number of private universities as well as the number of students enrolled in them, in spite of this, quality and research activities remain in a lower level than those found in public institutions.
Lula da Silva government launched efforts trying to stop the privatization process started by the former administration. Lula’s changes meant an improvement in social terms, as we shall see later in this paper, although the Brazilian university issue is still without solution. The challenges for Brazilian university are enormous, it must attend the diffusion of knowledge and the need of training professionals with capacity to meet the requirements of the market on one hand, and produce scientific knowledge to allow the country develop new technologies and a better position in an interdependent world on the other. This is not so easy, because Brazilian university as an institution is young (the first universities were created about 1930) and because along a long period of time the predominant point of view was that Brazil did not need of centers of excellence in higher education due to its role in the international division of work (being considered as a producer of raw materials).
This paper aims to discuss these issues showing that it is necessary to analyze them under a transdisciplinary approach. The article is divided into three sections: the first one includes this introduction; the second refers to the evolution of the policies on higher education in the two past governments, FHC´s and Lula´s. The university issue and the development and production of knowledge are analyzed in the third part. In the fourth one the concepts of transdisciplinary are presented and in the fifth and last, the final considerations.
II.- CURRENT TRENDS IN BRAZILIAN HIGHER EDUCATION POLICIES.Studies and research about Brazilian educational agenda developed by local policy makers, consultants and advisers reveal a process in which international institutions and agencies have played a central role as interlocutors and advisers, e.g. the World Bank1, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and agencies of the United Nations (UN). It must be noted that, in Brazil, since the 1980s the World Bank has reinforced its action. The increase of higher education institutions (HEI), and especially those privately owned, is the main result of the educational policies followed by Brazilian governments in the last decades. This is a historical trend in Brazil, consolidated in the 1960s and 1970s, when these institutions aimed to meet the needs in higher education, in particular, those of the emerging middle class searching for better cultural and social conditions. The expansion of vacancies in higher education was significant in private as well as in public universities.
II.1.- PUBLIC POLICIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN BRAZIL 1994-2006
Although there was not an explicit Education Reform Program during the FHC administration as a matter of fact there have been some important changes in educational system derived from the attempt to adjust public policies to the World Bank recommendations. This process was founded in the State Reform Director Plan (Plano Diretor da Reforma do Estado), started in 1995, developed by the State Reform and Public Managing Ministry (Ministério da Administração e Reforma do Estado, MARE), which states that reform “must be understood in the context of government new functions, according to this government must act promoting social and economic development as well as being a regulator agent.” (Peroni, 2000: p.5).
According to Dourado, (2002) in order to fill repressed demand from low income families and the relative higher cost (per capita) of public universities, government gave priority to private institutions in its efforts to expanding higher education access. Following this objective, and in addition, some steps were advanced seeking to ensure improvements in the quality of educational services provided by private higher institutions such as: a) the annual national test for graduate students, ENADE2, b) external evaluation instrument managed by Ministry of Education, which publishes annual records on higher education institutions, and c) requirements on, and incentives to, research activities and continuous training programs for professors (promoting an increase in the number of high degree graduated teachers: Phd and master´s degree). There is still controversy about the global impact of these measures, however, it is accepted that some changes took place, which will be commented in the next section.
In Brazil during the eight years of both Fernando Henrique Cardoso administrations (1994-2002), there was higher education privatization. Initially, it was the aim to privatized even public universities. Nevertheless, the response of society as a whole, and particularly of the academic community, led to dropping the project, which then was performed indirectly, by reducing federal funds in public universities and encouraging the increase of private universities. It may be verified that from 1994 to 2002 the Educator State paradigm in relation to higher education fell down, being substituted by the Controller State one (Lucchesi, 2006a).
In the Lula da Silva government some new initiatives concerning higher education like Quotas, PRO-UNI Program and new instruments for external control, were addressed in an attempt to revert the logic predominant since the 1990s (BRASIL, 2004a). This logic, firmly support by private HEI owners, argues that education could be seen and managed as a profitable activity as well as a public service. Nonetheless, studies show that private institutions gave priority to the former one. Thus, the current process still presents excluding and fragmentary education public policies; if it has been trying to reorganize the public system and control the private one on one hand, it has not been able to point to a substantial change in Brazilian higher education system on the other.
Quotas
A new aspect regarding the present Brazilian higher education public policies is the issue of ethnic (or racial) quotas, which was entirely absent in our educators discourse, and has become a demand from African-Brazilian awareness movements.
Reserving places in public universities for African-Brazilians and Native-Brazilians has generated great discussion. First, it is argued that it does not avoid the deficiencies based in lower levels of education, particularly primary education, and then, because it contradicts the Brazilian Constitution, which prohibits discrimination on ground of race, gender, belief, etc.
Official data show the presence of African-Brazilians is smaller in private universities (paid ones), than in public ones (free of charge). Nonetheless, the government has created ethnic reservation quotas only in public universities.
The PRO-UNI Program (University-for-All Program)
This program implemented by Lula da Silva government, according to government authorities "is the largest scholarship program in Brazilian education history. Created by the Federal Government in 2004, and enacted by Bill number 11.096, from January 13, 2005, enables the access of thousands of low-income youngsters to higher education. It aims to provide full and part-time scholarships to students of undergraduate and specific sequential courses in private institutions of higher education, offering tax exemptions to those adhering to the program. Brazilian federal universities offer 122 thousand places a year in entrance exams. PRO-UNI, right in its first selection process, offered 112 thousand full-time and part-time scholarships to 1,142 higher education institutions in the whole country. It is the largest number of places created in higher education in a year. In the next four years, the program will be offering 400 thousand more scholarships". (BRASIL, 2004b)
Although it is directed to low-income students, critics argue that the program is a transfer of public resources to the private sector with uncertain outcome for students selected, because of the low quality teaching in most of private institutions.
Evaluation instruments
At the end of November, 2005, Inep/MEC launched the Principles and the external evaluation instrument of higher education institutions, in the process of setting the National Evaluation of Higher Education System (Sinaes)3, created by Bill n° 10.861, of April 14, 2004. Since September 2004 this process is running a self-evaluation instrument, involving more than 2.000 institutions that belong to the Federal System of Higher Education. Another instrument is the National Exam of Graduated students (Enade), which annually evaluates students of the last academic year of several careers such as medicine, engineering, law and some in social sciences field.
Some other initiatives
Over the past few years private universities have been tending to adjust to the new government requirements, paying more attention to extension activities (social) and – in a certain sense, research. Among the most important of these are the following:
- Judicial Support Centers
Which are centers of free legal aid provided to help lower income people deal with judicial affair abuses. Support Judicial Small Affair Courts to resolve affairs of small amounts of money4.
- Junior Enterprises
These are centers where students belonging to economics, accountant and business administration courses provide help and advise to small and medium enterprises.
- Solidarity University Program
To develop literacy programs for adults in poor communities.
- Open University Program
Programs freely offered to elderly people providing all kind of courses such as politics, literature, hand-crafts and also social, sports, cultural and recreation activities.
II.2.- SOME STATISTICS ABOUT BRAZILIAN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM
According to INEP (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais) data, Brazil currently has 2,381 registered higher education institutions. A few, 177, are universities (being two specialized ones), and a greater deal of them (58.82%) are colleges. This percentage rises when including the Integrated Colleges (120) and the Technology Colleges (177) (BRASIL, 2006). See Table 1.
The same data also reveal that, out of the 2,381 Higher Education Institutions existing in Brazil today, 89.83% (1,400) are privately-owned. The remaining 10.17% correspond to public HEIs (243 institutions, including the new ABC Federal University, in São Paulo).
The First National Census of academic professionals printed by INEP in 2005 show that there are 230.784 academics in higher education institutions: 22,7% of these hold doctoral or higher level degree; 35% are masters; 29,4% hold specialized studies; 11,8% bachelors and 1,1% declared another condition. These records will be updated in a semester basis.
From 1997 to 2003 private higher education institutions experienced a great expansion, the number of students enrolled increased about 154%, with an annual average rate of growth of 17%. Private universities showed an increase in the students admissions from 392.041 in 1997 to 995.873 in 2003. However, in 2003, this trend showed a fall to 8% rate relative to the former year (MEC/INEP)5. Considering pubIic and private institutions this growth was from 573 000 to 1,26 million in the same period. However, according to data belonging to private higher education institutions the average rate of increase of the demand observed from 2005 to 2010 reached only 5% a.a., lower than a half of the one revealed until 2003.
From these data we may conclude that at this moment in Brazil private higher Education is undergoing a situation of deep crisis. Out of the total number of places offered for higher education, 49.5% are left untaken in private institutions: there are no enough interested takers to affording their own studies The number of vacancies supplied by these institutions during 1997-2003 grew about 241% while the enrolment was of just 154%.The situation in free public universities is totally different since their places remain scarce and very disputed.
This decrease of the enrolment suggests a slow down on demand, that is why the enthusiastic adhesion to the PRO-UNI program is understandable, through this way, private institutions can meet excess in vacancies and obtain public (free of charge) funds.
At the beginning of 2006, as a result of the prevailing frame we observe a reduction of investment and a predatory competition among private higher education institutions. Two extreme positions among these institutions have been observed: those, that gave up any interest in quality and profile, lowering their fees, firing their Ph..D. holders and closing courses; and those that decided to invest introducing modern equipment, adopting continuous training programs directed to improve quality of educational service, increasing the number of teachers with post-graduate degree and taking the research paradigm no longer as a demand from government but rather as what make the difference and enhance them to improve its image and share into educational market, attracting interest from middle and upper class students. This latter group is still a small one.
In an attempt to revert this current trend some institutions introduced new ‘products’ such as: a) post-graduate courses in business administration (MBA) and Information Technology (IT); b) short undergraduate courses (two-year long study), and c) long-distance courses6. However, it is difficult to foreshow long-term outcomes of these initiatives because, in recent years - aiming to meet their skilled-labor demand - corporation and multinational companies created their own graduate and undergraduate courses, the so-called corporate universities.
Despite involvement of the government fostering private institutions to developing scientific research, their contribution to reaching this goal is no longer relevant. According to CAPES agency7 scientific research in Brazil increased by 19% during 2004 -2005, and by 49% in the last five years. This result refers to scientific research in medical and physical fields, most of which proceeds from public universities, public enterprises or government research centers8.
Competition among private institutions led to a critical worsening labor conditions and labor relations for many professionals, the outsourcing process settled by the former government created greater instability into the institutions that reflected in teaching quality. The federal government efforts to improve public university situation (by heightening their financial resources) were not enough to get a better higher education level as a whole, due to the clear predominance of private institutions. We can, therefore, conclude that Brazilian university is currently undergoing a deep crisis.
III.- EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT AND THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITYIII.1.- Education and development
Literature on higher education shows that there is a link between the development of the university and the development of a country as a whole. In less industrialized countries and in some of those of recent industrial process universities did not reach the level observed in developed countries. Even those old universities founded around XVth and XVIIth century that were remarkable for a long period of time are not in a relevant position nowadays not even in regional scope. As reported by some specialized surveys only a few Latin American universities are included into the group of selected universities in the world9.
This assessment is confirmed when we study the history of Brazil and other Latin American countries. In some of these countries in colonial phase, universities are longer than 300 years old10. In Brazil, university is about 80 years. The university in Latin America reaches its highest point in the second period of XXth century, along the deep process of industrialization, urbanization and the emergency of middle class. Currently just three Latin American universities are included among the 200 best in the world. On the other hand, China, a country whose government is pursuing a faster growth process, and which appears as one of the newest manufacturer export countries, has at least two universities included in this selected group11.
The increasing competition and globalization process are imposing greater challenges to educational system as a whole, and to higher education, in particular. The gap between developed and least developed countries with regard to access and resources for higher learning and research may become wider unless there is a great effort concerning research, scientific knowledge and technology, provided by universities and other educational establishments that are approved as institutions of higher education by the competent public authorities.
Developing and Least developed countries will be able to improve the living standard of their inhabitants by means of providing access to education and other public services, promoting citizenship, guaranteeing well labor conditions and so on. This means to avoid inequalities and improve redistribution of income. Thus, discussion on the expansion of the university and how to finance its expansion and development became priority instead of considering the function of the university issue.
III.2.- ISSUES IN BRAZILIAN HIGHER EDUCATION DEBATE
From current debate about Brazilian education policies, some arguments emerged that founded privatization policies on higher education developed in Brazil in the 1990s. Some frequently quoted in related papers are discussed in the following lines.
a) Most students belonging to low income families have no access to higher education, due to weaknesses prevailing in public institutions of basic and secondary level and because the entrance requirements are higher in public universities. Thus, enhancing levels of teaching in those institutions would lead, in the long run, to a redistribution of income, since improving the teaching quality and increasing literacy all around the country. If this comes true, we can expect these families could reach higher standard of income.
b) Although, according to INEP data, the number of students of lower income families (lower than three minimum wages ), is 12.9% in private universities, against 26.5% in public ones, that is, the greater deal of student population attending private universities. Two main factors could be mentioned to support this assessment: first, according to data published by Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, IBGE, in PNAD12 2004 (National Research by Home Sampling), 50.1% of Brazilian population earns up to 3 minimum wages a month, 60% of Brazilian families earns incomes lower than three minimum wages; and second, almost 80% of students enrolled in higher education institutions belongs to private universities (BRASIL, 2006a).
c) Private universities present lower “cost per student” rate, therefore, they have a “comparative advantage” relative to public ones. Thus, from the point of view of policy makers, it is cheaper to create vacancies in private universities.
As a result of those theses, policies followed are characterized by, as they were seen, a sharp promotion of private university and a relative increase of funds directed to basic and secondary education institutions rather than to higher education ones. We believe, however, that not only this assertion but also policies followed until 2002 were built on weak foundations that are mistaken issues. We shall try to demonstrate this:
a) Education system is an integrated one, formed by three levels, primary, secondary and higher education institutions. Giving priority to one out of the others does not help to solve the current state. Each one plays a specific role in the whole system. Considering that, nowadays, innovation in knowledge and technology became crucial for countries to improve their insertion in global economy, if higher education lies almost entirely with private institutions, it could mean a delay in scientific research development, in consequence, the country will remain further from developed ones.
The opposition between financing basic or higher education imposed by neo-liberal ideology and the option of exclusively financing the former supported by World Bank, as the unique acceptable public policy for least developed countries, among which Brazil itself and its South American neighbor countries, is another mistaken issue which took place in the debate on education public policies in the last decades. Also, the opposition between public and private education is not right because education must be understood as a system, a complex whole, in which by affecting one of its parts, all the system will be affected. (Lucchesi, 2004a)
b) On the other hand, weather education is a mechanism of social mobility, the expansion (increase of the number of enrolments and of years of study) does not seem enough to guarantee a certain improvement in lower income families. Current researches demonstrate that, in spite of the rise of literacy average of students and workers during the last decades, neither poverty nor unemployment had a significant decrease. A remarkable case refers to women, who make less income than men in spite of their higher average of schooling.
Gentili (2004) criticizes the idea of expanding basic education as a panacea for Latin American inequality problems: “The paradigm is the case of women. As mentioned before. They represent one of the most segregated sectors. They earn less and are more discriminated in the labor market. Nevertheless, within the economically active population in Latin America, women have studied longer than men. Still more, the income gap between the sexes becomes wider as women education increases.” [GENTILI, 2004, pp 84-85). In his view, extending access to formal education did not result in democratization of knowledge which is still restricted to the elites. Neither has more schooling been translated into higher income or social justice. The revealing example is that of Brazilian women, who study more than men, but earn less and are more affected by unemployment.
c) Another mistaken issue is the “cost per student” rate in public higher education, which seems to be higher than in private institutions. This assertion omits a basic methodological requirement in dealing with comparative statistics. Data in focus must refer to the same phenomenon or object, and it is clearly not the case, because of huge difference not only in teaching quality in public universities relative to private ones, but also in research and extension activities as mentioned above. In the case of Brazilian public universities, in many cases, service offered to community lies on teaching and high quality research. In the Health area, the best public service in Brazil is generally provided by university hospitals whose costs are partially included in the “cost per student”. Another example of the great difference in the quality of services offered by each one is the result of evaluation and performance tests of the students. According to the ENADE data, by INEP 2004, 78.0% of the students of public universities got high marks, about 4 and 5 (in a 1-5 scale) while students of private ones were just 38%. “Private institutions concentrated a higher number of courses with the lowest marks. They were 104 out of the 148 in the whole country (70.3%)”13.
III.3.- THE UNIVERSITY ROLE
The expansion of higher education issue in Latin America got the influence of Minimum State ideology predominant in the 1990s. Because of this, the debate about the epistemology and the paradigm that should guide the university was substituted by what should be the main source of financing, whether public or private one. The consequences of privatization of higher education in Brazil lie in the fact of not taking into consideration the epistemological issue: The essence of university is the production of knowledge, while teaching and extension, that is, diffusion, are results of the former.
Scientific knowledge is not a profitable activity in the short run, on the contrary, it is a long run investment and a national concerning matter, too. This is why it is difficult for private universities to keep excellence centers unless they can get public financing. We can see that all countries that achieved a competitive process of production of knowledge and technology and developed high added value activities are characterized for addressing high percentages of national budgets to finance research. Nonetheless, in Brazil, we observe a strong decrease of resources addressed to these means, which is not strange, for government was willing that private initiative, this is private universities, could afford financing research in the country. (Lucchesi, 2004b, e Lucchesi, 2003)
At present production of knowledge is a matter of national sovereignty and it should be treated this way. When a nation abdicates the right to establish its national policies and delegates this task to international or external organization, it renounces its perspective of any national development project, whether social or economic. In this context, current demand for a great diversification in higher education differs from that prevailed a few decades ago. This is so because of the quantity, the quality and the way scientific knowledge is produced are suffering significant changes. This is due not only to the fact that the university is required to improve its production (this meaning new knowledge, processes and materials), but also to the growing importance of other science and technology centers, like industries and autonomous institutions, whose output, although brings some benefits to householder, as new and more complex products: e.g. cellular phone; personal computers, etc., which could be seen as social benefits, in fact most of these benefits are privately owned. This process, however, is salient in developed and some emerging countries, like the so-called “Asian tigers”. High correlation between development efforts, directed by national objectives, and higher education level, is confirmed by the Chinese experience, a country which has started a sui generis insertion in global economy, introducing capitalist rules in strategic sectors, opening its economy to external capital and, this is remarkable, enhancing its universities to improve research and scientific production, this is why we can see some Chinese universities listed among selected centers despite its economic reform process was one of the latest being started.
Thus we return to our initial statement that the issue of higher education in Brazil and in all developing countries is an epistemological one which, in fact, goes beyond the scope of emerging countries and is a general matter about the essence and, therefore, the ethos of the university at the threshold of this third millennium. Actually, even if its functions and society demands have become clearer, there has been no change in university function as a producer of knowledge,
... it is highly problematic to reach a vastly accepted understanding about any of the elements concerning this topic. On the other hand, it is quite risky to draw any safe scenario for university’s future transformations. There is no reasonably established consensus about this university-society axis. A university does not stand on the outside or separated from society, rather it belongs to its complex and contradictory texture, a part of its mutual inter-acting relationships. (Dias Sobrinho, 2004: 1).
According to this author we have to think any institution or phenomenon “considering the characteristics of a global society”, in a context of cultural pluralism and diversity. Concerning university in particular, “it is necessary to take into account the fragmentation and multiplication of different types of knowledge, information and exchanges”. Following this approach, we can state that this is the case for transdisciplinarity, as an instrument to build an alternative paradigm for university. It is the university role, in globalization context, to produce both technological knowledge as well as criticalness. The same author argues that it is important for the university not to lose its critical vocation neither its capacity to have an overall view of things. “But this does not mean self-interested”, for “university is part of the whole spectrum of social life.” If university submits to objectives “lined up with a technocratic and mercantile orientation”, if it abdicates its function of training, educating and granting autonomy to individuals in favor of organizing production, if it assumes “the fetishisms of profit maximization behavior, of productivity, of excellence and of compulsion for readily applicable knowledge,” it runs the risk of defacing itself and negating its history as a university with a critical function. This would bring about negative consequences to the whole nation.
Under these assessments it is possible to make some considerations about the nature of Brazilian university crises. As mentioned, university grew in the last decades. The number of private institutions as well as the number of students enrolled experienced a significant increase. However, this expansion did not occurred with an improvement in teaching quality as verified by the following facts: the low marks of students of private institutions, the scarce scientific production and the absence of these institutions in null international list of selected centers. The São Paulo University14 is the only one Brazilian institution among the 200 best ones.
We can conclude, then, that Brazilian university, with few exceptions, in not achieving its functions, it just disseminates knowledge and train professionals but does not get an outstanding place as a producer of scientific knowledge – what actually is the ETHOS of higher education – neither as a designer of viable alternatives to lead to development reducing poverty. This takes us to rethink it, and this can and should be done in the light of a new paradigm.
We can conclude, then, that Brazilian university, with few exceptions, in not achieving its functions, it just disseminates knowledge and train professionals but does not get an outstanding place as a producer of scientific knowledge – what actually is the ETHOS of higher education – neither as a designer of viable alternatives to lead to development reducing poverty. This takes us to rethink it, and this can and should be done in the light of a new paradigm.
IV.- SOME ASSESMENTS ABOUT A NEW PARADIGMIV.1.- TRANSDISICIPLINARITY AND THE PARADIGME ISSUE: AN INSIGHT
We shall define “paradigm” in the context of scientific knowledge before discussing the new paradigm for 21st century university. Starting with Plato and Aristotle, who thought paradigm as a model, or a rule, with the peculiar capacity of being generalized, it was also the set of beliefs to serve as an example of something. In Thomas Kuhn (1962) conception the beliefs and modeling aspects are retained.
Moraes (2003) state that two distinct moments in scientific knowledge define a paradigm and a paradigm crisis. While a paradigm occurs when “a certain consensus about specific phenomena or occurrences are being reached, promoting a unifying synergy around a new theme which gradually clarifies and delineates the contours of the new scientific paradigm” (Moraes, 2003:132), the paradigm crisis, according to Kuhn, corresponds to the moment when, in science evolution process, certain anomalies or problems come up, whose solutions require new theoretical references as the existing ones seem incapable of solving the most pressing problems. As a consequence, the members of the scientific community start searching for new theories, for a new conceptual frame capable of coping with the problems that start repeating themselves, thus giving birth to what will eventually lead to a change in paradigm. These new theories are then accepted and become the theoretical frame for the emerging paradigm, offering theoretical tools for scientific investigation. A paradigm outlines, defines an epistemic structure, a conceptual framework, a frame of reference capable of conducting scientific investigations during a certain period of time. It would amount to a kind of construction that puts an end to existing controversies in the area regarding certain foundations or the “principle of organizing theories itself” (MORIN, 2001).
Transdisciplinarity views the human being as a whole and as such it should be understood for the whole is not merely a sum of its parts, and “dividing to study”, as the Cartesian view proposes, is but a step, not the whole path. It is necessary to introduce the issue of complex thinking, which consists in overcoming the segmentation of reality resulting from the Cartesian method. In this context, a great advance is represented by interdisciplinary research and, beyond that still, by transdisciplinary research. It is a true epistemological change in the production of scientific knowledge.
Among the new paradigms proposed for Education, Transdisciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity have consolidated their positions as new concepts to rescue knowledge as a whole, as an approach integrating specialists of various fields, without any disciplinary barriers. Interdisciplinarity offers, among its possibilities, the creation of a new field of knowledge by superposing other disciplines. It is not a matter of addition, but of a new way of thinking that crops up. “Transdiciplinarity lies at the same time between disciplines, through disciplines and beyond any discipline. The purpose of any transdisciplinary activity is to understand our present world, which in turn requires unity of knowledge.” Transdisciplinary research can be distinguished from disciplinary research because it is interested in the dynamics resulting from the simultaneous action of various levels of Reality (Project CIRET, 1997: 5). Therefore, the discontinuous structure of the levels of Reality determines the discontinuous structure of the transdisciplinary space. (CIRET, 1997).
“The first level would be the body, basically directed by bodily desires. Its perceptual apparatus are the five senses. The second level would be the psychic, basically directed by emotions and thoughts. Its perceptual apparatus is composed by reason, mental representations and formulations. The third level would be the animic, basically directed by feelings and image forms (Henry Corbin, Corps spirituel et terre céleste, Ed. Buchet Chastel, 1979). Its perceptual apparatus is constituted by intelligence and intuition. The fourth level would be the spiritual, the level comprising essences and primordial archetypes, directed by love and compassion. Its perceptual apparatus is ecstatic vision. (CIRET,1997:5)
IV.2.- A PROPOSAL
Today Education should be perceived as a multidisciplinary experience and, whenever possible, as an interdisciplinary experience. It is in this sense that post-graduate studies make a significant contribution to the educator, because it is in these courses that advances, risks and experimentation take place. This is where new pathways for education and the educator can be proposed and experienced.
Veiga-Neto (2002) states that the post-graduate level is a privileged area to develop interdisciplinary studies, for it can count on experts who, “while being ‘strong’ in their respective fields of knowledge, are open and receptive to other fields, which are sometimes quite apart in epistemological terms.” For the author, knowledge produced by interdisciplinary research is not “superior”, nor “better”, what really matters is that it will bring into being the “production of other kinds of knowledge, of new kinds of knowledge, thanks to innovating perspectives, which permeate the disciplines which originated them” (VEIGA-NETO, 2002: 32). The university “crisis” should be understood as an extremely relevant moment, characterized by transforming university into an institution more organically linked to society and not parallel to it anymore.
The issue is epistemological not only in the sense of conceptualizing and understanding university and its function in 21st century society, but also in the sense of defining what teaching is. Would it be possible to understand teaching today as the reproduction of knowledge without any critical sense in front of the students? In other words, transmission of information without production of knowledge (here understood as the concrete and transmissible result of an internal process based on information that comes from outside the cognoscente) and of expertise (that is, what remains internally and modifies the individual by means of knowledge)? Obviously, not. If understanding teaching this way made any sense in the Middle Ages, when books and manuscripts were rare and expensive (and even then there was research, questioning and innovation), today, with access to and excess of information, the teacher role is to search for a transforming path.
In a society self-called "knowledge society", this expression, though ambiguous, undoubtedly signals the importance of this asset called knowledge in the contemporary world. From this point of view, Education acquires a relevance never acquired before, or at least consciously acquired. The importance of learning, either as foundation to preserve a culture, or as a factor of transformation is historical for society.
Touriñán (2005) states that the relationship among universities, companies and the society, and its public objectives, has been generating nowadays a tension, which could be overcome by means of extension and institutional communication. To the author, extension has become a strategic factor, together with research and teaching. Nevertheless, it is no longer a question of knowledge transmission. What is demanded is that people, companies and countries (be able to) generate knowledge in a continuously way, and that the Educating State provide basic conditions for the development of knowledge generation.
If knowledge (here understood as a public and shared asset) and knowing (here understood as individual ownership of knowledge and the capacity of dealing with it) have always meant power, today they also mean wealth. Although this phenomenon began with the Industrial Revolution, resulting in productive application of new techniques and tools, in this phase innovation only generated social and private benefits if it met capital to finance its economic allocation, by transforming it in new equipment (physique capital). Nowadays, this situation has changed dramatically. Although there are still great investments in manufacturing industry, greatest profit stems from the sale of technology, which may be done by small companies, with extremely low material investment, as long as it has highly-qualified human resources (human capital).
It is in this scenario that the university plainly takes hold of its "ethos" of knowledge generator. Thus, a new paradigm (perhaps not so new anymore!) imposes itself to prioritize the research function in higher Education institutions (not only in universities, where it already exists by law and concept, at least in Brazil, but also in any higher Education institution), since quality teaching, forming creative professionals capable of dealing with permanent change and constant learning, stems from it.
If for countries already presenting positive educational rates, this moment has posed a challenge in demanding a new, more dynamic university, for developing countries the objective of increasing the number of students taking higher Education is added.
It is believed the paradigm proposed for the university emerging in the 21st century remains true: whoever is able to generate knowledge will survive. For the mere transmission of established knowledge, distance course, have been arising, even internationally. In Brazil distance learning has been fostered by the government since, given the great isolated areas in the country, teachers’ qualification and development is only viable in some more distant places through this resource. It does not nullify the personal teacher/ mentor relationship, configured both by the demand for some direct teaching / hours and by the personal contact on the Internet between teacher and student. This contact does not limit itself to recorded impersonal classes, but rather to a dialogue, a personal contact, both in writing or through a webcam.
It is necessary, however, to mention that Brazilians, often, still free ill at ease in this learning modality, with the exception of the high technology fields where, being involved with electronic means, they are more familiar with this modality. On the other hand, with elementary and secondary public school teachers, the ones who need distance learning the most, this process is barely starting. The action of universities, both public and private, has been essential to researching new experiences in this field. Here also the relationship between university professor and students has become a relationship between researchers / teachers / mentors and researchers / students. If this does not hold true, if this relationship is not the basis for researching new proposals and ways for Education, the latter will become obsolete and lose its purpose.
The emerging university paradigm, based on knowledge generation through research and its diffusion by teaching and extension, is beginning to be accepted by some private institutions, arising from students demands who, when able to choose where to study, prefer institutions providing research activities. Proof is that, in the beginning of the school year, aiming at conquering new students, some Brazilian universities and university centers have been using the media to advertise the quality and quantity of their research programs (number of graduate programs approved by CAPES).
This movement results from the demands of society itself in general and prospective students for higher Education in particular. It is, therefore, a movement "from outside the university walls", through which society demands the university adopt a new paradigm, capable of responding to the demands of a knowledge society. (LUCCHESI, 2006b)
V.- CONCLUDING REMARKSEducation, at present time of globalization and growing interdependency, is facing new challenges. For developed and developing countries countries, these challenges mean to make their national education network able to raise solutions seeking, on one hand, to reduce the gap between the developed and developing countries concerning the economic, scientific and technological fields and, on the other hand, to improve their position in the international division of market as well as in relation to distribution of income and wealth in the world
In this context and following some trends, Brazil and other Latin American countries applied reform policies in education inspired in neo-liberal point of view of World Bank. As a result it is shown a high increase of enrolments in education system as a whole and especially in higher education. In the case of Brazil one more characteristic is stressed in this period: the great amount of private institutions providing education services. Nevertheless, despite efforts from state authorities, it is observed that most of private universities got to increase the number of carriers, mainly those required by current labor market trends – e.g. business administration, information technology, and other- but without improving the quality of teaching or scientific production.
These results confirm that not only Brazilian university, but a great deal of them in developed and developing countries as well, run away from its ETHOS. This is, far from its real core meaning producing and expanding scientific knowledge. This situation becomes hurtful considering the gap between the developed and developing countries is getting wider as shown in world literature.
This scenario suggests that university is in crises. Its fails in reaching its social function reveals that teaching methods and production of knowledge, as well as produced knowledge itself, do not match with the country goals concerning to higher levels of development. That is why today it is worthy to seek a new paradigm to let rethink the university function, its agenda and its methods.
A transdisciplinary approach emerges in this context as an alternative to build this new paradigm. This approach does not mean to avoid other methods applied in each discipline, but to build one to join the different contributions derived from each one and add a multicultural dimension as a tool of action and intervention to face the challenges of a multicultural and multilingual society. It is proposed that this approach could be applied in postgraduate level to let add and multiply and not a superposition of specialized knowledge for we still are in a phase of building a methodological alternative
1See !994 World Bank Report on Education, Higher Education: Lessons Of The Experience, which was a central reference in debate.
2ENADE, Exame Nacional de Desempenho dos Estudantes (Student National Exam )
3SINAES, Sistema Nacional de Avaliação da Educação Superior
4Lower than R$ 13 000 Reais, (Brazilian monetary unity). That is about 6 thousand dollars.
5Cf. Braga, R e Monteiro C. Análise setorial do Ensino Superior, in Revista Ensino Superior, São Paulo, Nº 5 Março 2005.
6The Census 2004 of Higher Education revealed that the number of these courses grew more than ten times, from 10 to 107 in the last years.
7CAPES, Coordenadoria de Aperfeiçoamento do Pessoal de Ensino Superior (Higher Education Professional Trainning Board), is a federal agency of the Brazilian Ministry of Education , MEC (Ministério da Educação).
8From 2004 to 2005 the number of papers published in indexed scientific journals grew from 13.303 to 15.777, according to official reports of the Instituto de Informação Científica, ISI (Scientific Information Institute) However, this is not a good indicator of the quality of the scientific production of Brazilian scientist, because, according to CAPES Director, Jorge Guimarães: there was not an important increase in new Brazilian patents registered. Thus, Brazil did not improve its rank in scientific international list, remaining in the 27 position.
9See e.g. the 2006 TIMES Higher Education Supplement, THES, available in http://www.timesonline.co.uk , and the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2006 of the Institute of Higher Education, IHE, of the Shangai Jiao Tong University, available at http://www.ed.sjtu.edu.cn.
10Santo Domingo University, in Santo Domingo, founded in 1538; San Marcos University in Lima (Perú) and Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico) both founded in 1551.
11TIMES (2006) includes only one Latin American university into the 100 best universities group, São Paulo University, from Brazil. Beijing University and Sing Hua University, from China, are also mentioned in this survey. Otherwise, IHE (2006) included only Sing Hua University among the best universities around the word. São Paulo University (Brazil) is included, too. As Sing Hua University, São Paulo University appears in the 102-150 (world rank) group. The other Latin American centers, the Autonomous University of Mexico (México) and the Buenos Aires University (Argentina), which are also included in this survey, hold a lower rank. They appear in the 151- 200 (world rank) group.
12PNAD, Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, is a national research developed by IBGE, which collect a great amount of economic and social statistics of Brazilian population. PNAD results are available at http://www.ibge.gov.br.
13The 2004 National Exam of Students, ENADE 2004, evaluated 140 340 students, enrolled in 2 184 courses in 13 fields of knowledge: Agronomy, Physical Education and Sports, Nursery, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Mathematics, Nutrition, Dentistry, Social Service, Pharmacy, Labor Therapy and Zoology . Cf. MEC, reports available at http://portal.mec.gov.br. Informativo. Last access in May 3, 2005.
14The São Paulo University (USP), is the only one Brazilian HEI among that list. It is a public higher institution located at the southeastern state of São Paulo supported by regional government and federal funds.
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