Limites e possibilidades da autonomia escolar nos CMEI’s de Teresina

Abstract

This paper analyses the difficulties in the management to make it democratic and autonomous in two Centers of Early Childhood Education (CMEI’s) in the city of Teresina. Facing such proposition, we have elected for this research the following guiding matter: what are the main elements that interfere in the lack of autonomy and independence in the pedagogical actions of the managers at the two CMEI’s in Teresina’s local education system? The carrying out of this research has as the general purpose to analyze and come up with forms of action to the main elements that interfere in the lack of autonomy and independence in the pedagogical actions of the managers at the two Eearly Childhood Education schools. We take as a hypothesis that the tracking of the Education Department, in the sense that schools are able to achieve the established goals in the Goals and Actions Plan (PMA), to obtain better results in the students’ academic achievement at the SAETHE, is impairing the schools’ autonomy. Another possibility would be the fact that the headmasters are overloaded in a bureaucratic routine, interfering the decision-making in a collective and participatory way. Furthermore, the way in which the different looks on autonomy are established and experienced by the subjects of the teaching-learning process contribute to the difficulty in the decision-making process experienced by both schools’ managers. The theoretical references that will base this study permeate the matter of the local and school community participation as a mechanism to a democratic management, as remarked by Lück (2000, 2006, 2009), such management must be developed based on the construction of the Political Pedagogical Project, translating itself in the exercise of autonomy in the schools, matter pointed out by Veiga (1995, 2001). This autonomy takes different meanings according to the understanding of the subjects involved in the educational process, mentioned by Barroso (1996) as decreed or built autonomy. In the perspective of built autonomy, it is brought to light the educational action in an emancipatory aspect, free from the domination and control from the System. To analyse this specific management situation, we will adopt as our methodology the qualitative research. The data collect was held through interviews and questionnaires directed to the subjects involved in the issue, such as: the managing personnel, the teaching staff, the parents and mothers involved in the School Council. We will also analyse the schools’ records, such as: the Political Pedagogical Project and the Goals and Actions Plan. The research reveals that the Goals and Actions Plan is the guiding instrument to the teaching practice and that is supplanting the Political Pedagogical Project. We also show that the senses of autonomy, mobilized by educational agents, point to an autonomy naturalization process. Thus, we propose an action plan that can contribute to the educational agents’ scope of action expansion, through the sharing of responsibilities between schools and SEMEC.