Education in the context of Brazilian development: perspective from local development

Abstract

The study in hand aims, by means of bibliographical revision, to approach the themes of education and development, briefly reviews the history of education, analyzing the relationships and interfaces of education with the development of a nation, mainly in the societies that have suffered the impact of industrial development. From this point of view, education cannot be seen only as a means of transmitting an alienated culture, but should be committed to life, to existence, and constitute a source for the promotion of the individual and of society. Such convictions, consciously assumed or not by Brazilian society after the revolution of the thirties, lead to substantial alterations in the Brazilian educational project. The reforms that have taken place in education in recent years sought to line up with the demands of new social relationships. In this way, the school as an agency of education has a preponderant role in the process of development, representing at the same time, fixed capital and human capital, instrument and agent of development. The interest for education revealed at all moments by international organisms and those responsible for the destinies of the Nation is not by chance, and it is not by chance either that one of the most important providences in the reorganization of the new Brazilian State following 1964 was educational reform, connecting it definitely to the project of national development. It is proposed that education be an alternative to alleviate the malignant effects of neoliberalism, a proposal of education that adopts the presuppositions of local development, idealized to bring equilibrium to the strengths of globalization, including the principles of sustainability as a way of maintaining life on the Earth.