Dilma announces reform of professional and technical education

Speaking on her weekly radio program, Breakfast with the President, Dilma Rousseff announced that a new program, Access to Technical Training and Employment (“Programa Nacional de Acesso ao Ensino Técnico e ao Emprego – Pronatec”), calling it the biggest professional education reform ever in Brazil. Pronatec will offer scholarships and financing for professional qualification courses. The program, with a R$24 billion budget to be invested between now and 2014 was approved by Congress last week. It is intended to create 8 million jobs.

According to Dilma, 208 new federal institutes of Professional Education will be built, with 35 of them operational by the end of this year. That will make it possible to offer some 630,000 free courses this year in partnership with small business training courses (known as the “S system,” (“Sistema S”), Senai and Senac).

“Besides all that, we will invest R$1.7 billion in building 176 state technical schools and improving another 543 of them. Pronatec will also pay for technical training in private schools through student loans,” said the president. “And the government will ensure that 30% of the funding is used to expand professional and technical education in the North and Northeast regions of the country. We will reserve 5% of the places in the programs for people with special necessities and set aside 1.1 million places for beneficiaries of the Brazil Without Misery program,” declared president Dilma.