Precarização do trabalho docente no ensino superior privado: um estudo de caso acerca dos processos de reestruturação produtiva e flexibilização

Abstract

This thesis, linked to the line of research Public Policies in Education, Training Processes and Diversity and the research group State, Educational Policies and Teacher Training (EPEFOP), had the general objective of analyzing the impacts of the set of laws linked to the Labor Reform on the process of precariousness of the work of tutors, teachers, coordinators and preceptors in private higher education. The following specific objectives were outlined: to understand the role played by tutors, teachers, coordinators and preceptors through the intensification and flexibilization of teaching work in a private higher education institution; to analyse the logic behind the teaching methodology applied by the large private educational conglomerates, as well as the strategies used to accumulate capital and hegemonize teaching processes. The research is based on the perspective of the historical-dialectical materialism method. The methodological procedures used were document analysis and semi-structured interviews. Regarding document analysis, priority was given to Law N. 13.467 (Brasil, 2017c), which includes the text of the Labor Reform; Law N. 13.429 (Brasil, 2017b), which covers the text of outsourcing; and Ordinance N. 1.428 (Brasil, 2018c), which regulates the provision of hours in the Distance Learning (DE) modality in face-to-face undergraduate courses. The semi-structured interviews were carried out with twenty professionals, including three tutors, six teachers, ten coordinators and one preceptor who work at a higher education institution located in the northern region of the state of Paraná and who have experienced the morphological restructuring of their work. The data was analyzed from this perspective in order to see how these changes have impacted and made teachers' working conditions more precarious. The data revealed that when Ordinance N. 1.428/2018 increased the number of distance learning subjects from 20% to 40% in face-to-face undergraduate courses offered by HEIs accredited by the MEC, the university investigated fired teachers from all courses to hire tutors in their place, with lower salaries and an overload of duties. After the Labor Reform, given by Law N. 13.467 (Brasil, 2017c), the institution began to hire Legal Entities (PJ), especially Individual Microentrepreneurs (MEI) to provide services related to teaching, subjects who no longer have the rights guaranteed by the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT), such as vacations, 13th salary and FGTS. In addition, this will result in pensions with benefits that are lower than those previously received, since the contribution to the pension may not be based on the salary floor of a teacher, but on a minimum wage that the MEI provides or on what the PJ collects from its pro-labore. All of these changes have led to the dismantling of teaching careers in higher education, to the detriment of hiring service providers who have no labor rights, are not included in the teaching category and are not represented by the union, nor do they have exclusive dedication. This compromises the teaching career and the teaching and learning processes in higher education.