The graduation course of visual arts of PARFOR-UNEB: brief notes on the importance participative education policies

Abstract

This essay aims at tracing some of the paths taken by the elementary education teacher training programs offered by the State University of Bahia (Brazil). From the 1990s onwards, this university offered tree major programs: the Intensive Graduation Program (UNEB Network, 2000) and the State Teachers Training Program (PROESP), and since 2010, the National Training Plan for Elementary Education Teachers, also named Paulo Freire platform (PARFOR). Analyzing more in deep this last program, the article is an attempt to describe the strategies of resistance enacted by work groups that show how creative outputs may result from the own difficulties and shortcomings. In this line, tensions and incompleteness may be understood as opportunities for transformation and evolution regarding both actor’s practices and political decision-making. The text explores the idea that policies were, in a way, forced to change in order to respond to the demands and realities of the populations and institutions involved.