O impacto da política de cotas nos cursos de ciências da natureza e educação física da universidade federal do pampa – campus Uruguaiana: uma análise sobre evasão e retenção

Abstract

With the enactment of Law No. 12.711/2012, better known as the Quota Law for admission to universities and federal educational institutes, there was a significant modification of the Unified Selection System (SiSU) and a transformation of the public inserted in the university environment. The Federal University of Pampa (UNIPAMPA), an institution located in the western half of Rio Grande do Sul, also reproduced all these changes. Therefore, this case study found in the courses in Natural Sciences and Physical Education of the Uruguaiana campus the situation of students entering from 2013 (first year of validation of the Law) until 2019 under he aspects of evasion and retention in the aforementioned degrees. At first, a quantitative approach (using descriptive statistics) was carried out with all 741 students who entered the period, where it was possible to verify that practically half of the students dropped out, with similar rates between quota holders and students non-quota holders. As for retention, there was a general difficulty with disciplines involving content of chemistry, physics and biology. It is also found that Physical Education students demonstrate better performance with respect to the number of graduates and the deadline for completing the course, but that both undergraduatecourses can evolve their numbers in the equivalence between dropouts and graduates. In the second moment, it was developed a qualitative investigation with 82 quota students through an online questionnaire, the data being interpreted through Bardin's Content Analysis (2011). In this investigation, it was identified that the lack of personal planning, the difficulty of reconciling studies with work and family, learning problems and financial issues are among the reasons for dropouts and retentions. In addition, quota students themselves proposed actions to improve their degrees, especially in terms of infrastructure, on-campus service and curriculum improvement. Finally, based on the data collected, some interventions were suggested that could in the short and medium term contribute to combat dropouts and delay in academic training.