As políticas de permanência e os seus impactos nos cursos de licenciatura da UNIPAMPA Campus Bagé: um olhar dos estudantes em situação de evasão

Abstract

The present study deals with the impact of student policies on retention in teaching courses at Bagé Campus of the Federal University of Pampa, from the perspective of its students. The interest in the topic is justified by the expansion of Universities that took place from 2003 onwards, covering regions with high demographic density and low public university coverage, as opposed to the large number of vacant places due to dropout, which characterizes a loss to the entire society. Evasion is a topic that needs to be debated, but existing studies tend to describe its reasons and factors, and present data and statistics, but there are few indications of alternatives or solutions to reduce this problem. The objective of this work is to understand, from the perspective of students on teaching courses at UNIPAMPA Bagé Campus, the impacts of student assistance policies on the retention and completion of higher education, anchored in the theoretical assumptions of Cespedes, et al (2021); Garcia, Lara, Antunes (2021); Lamers, Santos Toassi (2017); Ambiel, Cortez, Salvador (2021); Pena, Matos, Coutrim (2020); Moura, Mandarino, Silva (2020); Herbetta (2018) between others. This is a qualitative, descriptive and explanatory research, which adopts document analysis and case study procedures, with information collection using a mixed questionnaire. The responding public is made up of 43 dropouts from teaching courses at UNIPAMPA's Bagé Campus; mostly men; between 26 and 40 years old; in work activity; with an income of up to five minimum wages and approximately three semesters completed, enrolled in federal programs providing access to higher education. About student policies, we found that they are not sufficient to guarantee the permanence and completion of courses, even though the University has several actions in place: support for student accommodation, permanence, subsidized food, student housing program, transport support, among others. Some determining factors for dropout were by the respondents, such as interpersonal relationships, especially between teacher and student; the shortage of personal and family support, the shortage of material or financial support; the vocational factor; the market or career; academic performance; infrastructure deficiency; shortage of psychological, pedagogical and social support from the University; between others. We realized that many of the factors presented as responsible for course abandonment do not involve greater financial investments, and can be mitigated through a careful management look, such as: reorganization of class schedules; review of electronic means of communication; reformulation of the electronic page, making it more accessible and intuitive; psychological and/or pedagogical support when choosing a course; teacher training. The research showed that reducing dropout rates is a task that involves the whole society and requires endeavour from everyone, that is, achieving success in this purpose is a collective movement, not an individual one.