Education in Brazil between 1930 and 1985: prioritizing quantity over quality in educational expansion

Abstract

In the history of research on Brazilian education, several studies have addressed the expansion of elementary education over the years in Brazil, in addition to the historical pedagogical context that permeated this process of expansion in the period between 1930 and 1985. The main objective of this article is to analyze the process of expansion of Brazilian elementary education, based on Laws No. 4.024/61 and No. 5.692/71 of the National Education Guidelines and Framework Law (NEGFL). This research was based on a qualitative approach to documentary and bibliographic evidence and followed an interpretative research perspective. The article concludes that the educational policy of the military dictatorship in Brazil after the 1960s was supported by these two laws, and that their main objective was to ensure the expansion of vacancies in elementary education, aiming at the minimum qualifications for entry into the labor market, prioritizing the quantity and not the quality of education. Public education realized in the formation of human resources is considered a way to guarantee productivity, attending on the one hand to the demands for qualified labor in the capitalist market, and on the other hand, to the improvement of wages and the distribution of income to the elites.