Evasão discente em cursos de graduação do Campus Itaqui da Unipampa: análise das causas e propostas de ações

Abstract

This Master's Dissertation integrates the Research Line 1- Policies and management of basic and higher education, of the Professional Master's Course that is part of the Post-Graduate Program in Public Policies and Educational Management, of the Education Center of the Federal University of Santa Maria. The problem investigated asks: "what factors are involved in student dropout in UNIPAMPA's 4 and 5 years undergraduate degree courses and what institutional strategies and actions can contribute to reducing such evasion?" The general objective of the research was to identify and to understand the main factors involved in the high dropout rate of these courses, aiming at the elaboration of a plan of actions to reduce it, in order to collaborate with the consolidation of undergraduate courses, Campus Itaqui and UNIPAMPA, so that they fulfill the social role to which they are directed. We defined the subjects of the study as 791 (seven hundred and ninety-one) students evaded between 2012 (last year of courses implementation) and 2016 (year prior to the beginning of the research) of 5 courses: Agronomy; Food Science and Technology; Engineering of Surveying, Mathematics (Licenciatura) and Nutrition. We have chosen some guiding questions that, related to the literature researched through the state of the knowledge, helped in the construction of the questionnaire and in the directions of the research, enabling the definition of its specific objectives: characterize and analyze the academic performance of students evaded between 2012 and 2016, observing in which phase of the course the evasion predominated; characterize and analyze the socioeconomic profile and the origin of the students evaded between 2012 and 2016; identify the intentions and initial plans (at the moment of entry) of the students; identify actions that support the students of Campus Itaqui of UNIPAMPA, aiming at its permanence; identify structures that support the students of Campus Itaqui; to verify the destination of the students evaded between 2012 and 2016 of Campus Itaqui of UNIPAMPA and to propose priority actions to reduce student evasion, taking into account historical, social, political and educational aspects. The epistemological perspective chosen for the development of this research was historical-critical and the type of research implemented was a case study, integrated by procedures such as literature review, documentary research, consultations to the UNIPAMPA academic data system, qualitative / quantitative approach and research on-line (questionnaire application). The data analysis followed the methodology of content analysis proposed by Bardin (2016). Through this analysis, we observed that the main determinant problems of evasion pointed out by students from other cities (just over half of the sample) were related to the financial factor, while the main problems pointed out by students from Itaqui (almost half of the sample) were related to the pedagogical factor. In this way, we seek in the literature the vision of the totality of reality, contextualizing the situation of the Itaqui Campus with the lived situation of the expansion of higher education at an international and, especially, national level. Through the understanding of this reality, we proposed the actions plan to reduce evasion.