A nova lei de educação superior: fortalecimento do setor público e regulação do privado/mercantil ou continuidade da privatização e mercantilização do público?

Abstract

This article is oriented by the comprehension that higher education reform is, on the one hand, a political process of institutional adjustment to the conformation of the social beingand its activities, originating in themodern State. On the other hand, it seeks to produce a new culture with the goal of constructing the social pact necessary for a given historical moment. These tendencies specifically lead to the identification of some preliminary elements for an analysis of the current institutional reform in Brazil. There fore, the analysis deals with questions that go beyond a formallegal text like the Higher Education Reform Draft Bill, of 6th December 2004. Among the many elements to beconsidered in this text certaincategories and principles a reemphasised which represent the identity of the modern university and those elements which refer to legal-administrative changes prior to thedraft bill, that is, those originating from the Law of Technological Innovation, or from the Law thatinstitutes the National Programme of Evaluation in Higher Education, or from the Law that creates the Programme University for All, and, finally, from the Law of the Public/Private Partnerships. The text constitutes a preparation for a morerefined analysis of the Higher Education Draft Bill, in the version tobe discussed in the National Congress in the near future.