Participação social para prospecção de inovações na educação profissional e tecnológica

Abstract

The importance of education in the training of citizens and society in a general way is recognized by all. One type of education that has received a lot of attention in the international scenario and more strongly in Brazil is professional and technological education. The training of young people able to apply practical and relevant skills with the aim of promoting change within their society is one of the driving forces of technical education. However, even with all the initiatives to improve this type of education, several challenges still persist and need to be overcome in order for the training to be effective. In this sense, the introduction of innovations, both in the teaching and learning process and in the management of educational institutions is something that has been strongly addressed to overcome the challenges proposed. Allied to social participation, innovations can arise and perpetuate themselves more easily. Thus, the present paper aims to answer the following question: How can social participation generate innovations for the Federal Network of Professional and Technological Education? For that, the results of a program to identify innovations in technical education promoted by the Ministry of Education's Professional and Technological Education Department were analyzed. During the months of June to November 2016, thousands of proposals on strategic topics to promote improvements in education were sent by society. These ideas gave rise to a collection of ideas that contains the proposals that stood out most in the project and can be implemented by educational institutions and by society. In addition, two other exploration projects were created: EnergIF and IFAberto. The first one is an action plan for energy efficiency in educational institutions and the second is an application proposal for smarthphones aimed at students and teachers. These results support the implementation of innovative strategies in the management and operation of federal institutes and propose new methods of teaching and learning that meet the needs of students and teachers.