The Brazilian Vocational Education and Training “Nonsystem”: The Alliance Between Public Funding and Private Management

Abstract

This chapter reviews a text wrote in 2004, which has analyzed VET (Vocational education and training) in Brazil as a “nonsystem” composed by two segments – one “formal-visible” and the other “nonformal-invisible” – both supported by a historical alliance between public funding and private management (Leite EM, Moradillo M, Chieco NW, International handbook of education for the changing world of work; bridging academic and vocational learning. UNESCO/Unevoc – International Center for Technical and Vocational Education and Training, Bonn, 2009). This version keeps this analytical vision, but updates the VET market figures and highlights new VET demands driven by the social-economic agenda in the 2000s. In order to illustrate the referred public-private alliance, the chapter also presents consolidated VET cases involving different financing and management schemes. To conclude, the text outlines short- and medium-term perspectives for the VET market in a context of political-economic uncertainty, challenged by increasing demands for educated and skilled workers in a huge and diversified country.