Student dropping out at the teacher certification programs of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Abstract

Based on the discussion about specific characteristics of student dropping out from higher education and factors related to this phenomenon in the Brazilian context, this article focuses on student dropping out at teacher certification programs, which deserves special and urgent attention. It analyzes figures and particularities of this phenomenon at the teacher certifi cation programs of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), particularly during 2010 and 2011. It results from a qualitative-quantitative research project conducted through analysis of documents, of literature and a questionnaire applied to teaching certification program coordinators. The article concludes that the political, administrative and pedagogical tackling of this problem requires a social management based on global, intersectoral and integrated interventions. Such interventions must be based on knowledge of the problem’s many factors and expressions, on a debate by the academic community, on efforts to attract students to these programs. Above all, they must be designed to foster the teachers’ professional identity, to retain students in the programs and in the profession chosen by them.

Keywords: dropping out, UFMG, teacher certification programs, Reuni.