A escolarização de jovens e adultos no Plano Nacional de Educação (2014-2024): uma análise a partir de perspectivas educacionais em disputa

Abstract

This study analyzes Goals 3, 8, 9, and 10 of the National Education Plan (PNE, 2014–2024), with an emphasis on Youth and Adult Education (EJA), seeking to understand how the PNE is articulated with both Brazilian social formation and with the project of building a National Education System (SNE), marked by disputes and institutional fragilities. The central question guiding this research is: What challenges and potentialities are expressed in the assessments regarding the achievement of goals related to youth and adult schooling established in the National Education Plan (2014–2024)? To address this question, the study aims to: (i) analyze the educational perspectives present in the evaluations of the fulfillment of the youth and adult schooling goals set by the National Education Plan (2014–2024); (ii) examine the monitoring actions related to these goals; and (iii) investigate the propositions of federal state apparatuses concerning the implementation of such goals. Grounded in Historical-Dialectical Materialism and documentary analysis, the research identified tensions between official goals and social demands, as well as the resistance of social movements, particularly the EJA Forums. The results indicate that the goals directly related to EJA (8, 9, and 10) were not fully achieved: Goal 8 had insufficient coverage, Goal 9 maintained functional illiteracy at 12.3%, and Goal 10 reached only 4.7% of the expected enrollments, mostly in short-term training courses (FIC). Goal 3, focused on upper secondary education, achieved 82.1% net schooling, revealing structural deficits that affect future demand for EJA. The data reveal that Brazilian educational policy remains subordinated to an instrumental logic of rapid certification, at the expense of comprehensive education. The monitoring of the goals by INEP revealed several limitations, such as the prioritization of quantitative indicators, the interruption of historical data series during the pandemic, and the absence of structural policies ensuring the continuity of EJA. The fragility of the SNE, still in an unfinished process of institutionalization, reinforces the PNE’s vulnerability to political fluctuations and administrative discontinuity. Conversely, social movements and EJA forums have advocated for conceptions of education grounded in critical perspectives, denouncing the reduction of EJA to certification programs and efficiency indicators. Despite such resistance, neoliberal and market-oriented approaches have prevailed, restricting the implementation of public policies aimed at the integral education of the working class. It is concluded that understanding the PNE through the lens of Historical Materialism highlights EJA as a social right linked to human emancipation. Its effective implementation depends on adequate funding, institutional continuity, and the consolidation of a National Education System capable of articulating all stages of basic education, reaffirming the centrality of EJA in the construction of a democratic, secular, and socially grounded public school.