Reflections on the national policy of distance teacher training and the weakening of the public EAD by the Open University of Brazil (OUB)

Abstract

This article aims to problematize the development of public distance education (DE) through the Open University of Brazil system (OUB), to discuss how teacher training becomes the most offered option in the Brazilian DE, both private and public. It seeks to critically analyze the paths taken by the public DE, pointing out its challenges, limits and possibilities. It also indicates possible ways in which the public DE can no longer be recognized as part of government programs and can be constructed as a State policy, in a perspective of inseparability between teaching, research and extension, typical of a university education. We also sought to discuss the situation of the professional field of teaching, as well as discuss the lack of need to train more professionals through specific programs, without policies to strengthen the professional category. Finally, we discuss how the maintenance of the Open University of Brazil (OUB) is responsible for weakening and hindering the development and consolidation of DE as a regular modality from the academic and financial point of view in the federal public institutions of higher education.

Keywords

• Teacher training
• Open University system of Brazil
• Distance education