INTRODUCTION
The Master’s Program in Education (PPGE for its spelling in Education) was established in 1994 through a partnership with the Graduate Program in Education (PPGEDU) from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). It was the consolidation of a significant history of the Education School at UFPel, of commitment to constructing a democratic society and to the qualification of public and popular education at all levels. Since then, many institutional efforts and advances have been made in developing our work until we moved towards training to the Doctoral degree, which began in 2006.
As part of the Graduate Program in Education from the Education School, the primary goal of the Doctoral Program is the training of researchers aiming to qualify research committed to a free and public education of social importance, lending continuity to our existing political-pedagogical guidelines established in the Master’s Program and in other Programs at the Education School (Specialization in Education, Specialization for Teachers in the Area of Educational Management, Specialization in Literacy, Specialization in Education for the Deaf, Undergraduate Program in Pedagogy (day and night shifts), and the Graduate Program in Science and Mathematics Teaching – Professional Master’s Degree (PPGCEM). Therefore, our Graduate Program responds to the qualitative and quantitative development of research carried out by the Education School (FaE) faculty and to a growing demand in the southern region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
FaE has become a reference in training new researchers and promoting educational debates at universities, both nationally and in the south region, featuring increased intervention in the educational scenario. It is involved in discussing and elaborating educational policies with municipalities of the micro-region, in the Municipal Council of Education of the city of Pelotas, in Teacher Unions and with different social movements directly or indirectly linked to scientific education, in the short and medium-term, to organically expand our Research Groups and their intellectual and scientific production. The Program is nationally consolidated, with participation in several national events and collaboration with other universities, either through research or involvement in examining boards and other forms of external interaction, which earned it a grade of 5 for several triennials, maintained in the last quadrennium.
The Program’s goal is to advance to the level of programs graded 6. To this end, it has increased its integration and collaboration with foreign universities and seeks to consolidate academic exchanges and cooperation with researchers and professors from these universities. This internationalization work is deepened through joint research, visiting professors, doctoral internships abroad (split Ph.D.), and sabbatical internships (in Brazil known as Post-Doc). In addition, we highlight our participation in CAPES-Print and a CNPq internationalization project for the Humanities area.
Currently, the professors and researchers from the Program are mainly from FaE/UFPel, which, in addition to supporting the fundamental activities of the Master’s and Doctorate Programs, expands and consolidates its intellectual and scientific production in different instances of society.