São Paulo – The state of Paraíba, in Northeast Brazil, should have a specialisation course on living in the semiarid starting next year. The weather, characterised by low humidity and scarce rains, is common to most northeastern states. Thus, last week, educational leaders from the region submitted a proposal for a course, entitled “Contextualised Education for Living in the Semiarid” to the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG).
The course is an effort of the National Institute of the Semiarid (Insa) in partnership with the Brazilian Semiarid Education Network (Resab), the latter of which comprises educators who work in the Brazilian semiarid. The specialisation should target elementary school teachers at public schools, according to Silvio Rossi, a professor at the university and the coordinator of the group that elaborated the project. The workgroup was formed in March this year, after a workshop that brought together educational sector representatives from the region.
There has been no official reply from the UFCG regarding the implementation of the course yet, but Rossi believes it should be approved shortly, as the university has overseen the project’s elaboration and many of the professors involved work there. The goal is for the specialisation course to be made available starting next year. In March 2010, a class for 40 people should open in the municipality of Sumé, in the region of Cariri da Paraíba, and July should see the opening of another class, with the same number of students, in the municipality of Cajazeiros, in the Alto Sertão da Paraíba region.
According to Rossi, the class in Sumé may be attended by teachers from the state of Pernambuco, because the region is located near the border between the states of Paraíba and Pernambuco, and the class in Cajazeiras may be attended by educators from the states of Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte. The specialisation course should prepare teachers to give lessons within the context of the semiarid. Rossi explains that the goal of the course is not to alter the contents of elementary education, but rather to teach them to develop the contents while taking the local reality of the children into account.
“We hope that in the future, when they get to an university, these students will be able to contribute more effectively to the valuing and discovery of new potentialities in the region,” explains Rossi. The aim is to apply the project to other states in the Northeast as well, in order to spawn similar efforts. According to Rossi, conversations to that end are already underway, with the Secretariat of Education of the State of Ceará.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum