Abstract:
We are witnessing, in Brazil, from the years 80/90, an increasing of a set of national assessments. These assessments reach all segments, and this article approaches one of these assessments, The National Assessment of Students Performance - ENADE. The ENADE has been used as an assessment of the desired quality of Brazilian higher education, and due to all these assessments, some conflicts inside and outside the university might occur, mostly dealing with the evaluation concepts. The role of the state in these evaluation practices and by the displacement of the nation-state to a transnational state is discussed. This article attempts to approach these and some other problems, using the concept of governmentality, proposed by Michel Foucault. The ENADE was first applied in 2004, and is part of SINAES (Brazilian National Higher Education Evaluation System), of the Ministry of Education - MEC. Part of the exam checks the general knowledge while other part tests the specific knowledge, and the results bring consequences for the courses and institutions. And because of these consequences the concept of governmentality is the focus of this article.
Key words:
Governmentality; ENADE; Higher education; Implications of the evaluation