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Capes, university and alienation in the post-graduation programs

Among academics in Brazil, Capes is synonymous with graduate and post-graduate programs. Capes, considered highly effective as an agency of the Ministry of Education, has existed for 62 years and is responsible for the training of graduate and post-graduate students, as well as for holding academic institutions accountable to the training policies set forth by the federal government. Recently, however, Capes has been the target of criticism from Brazilian academics and researchers in the public universities because of the agency's micro-managerial and centralized form of control; the agency has consistently promoted policies and measures that seem to favor the more developed regions of the country while outright ignoring or neglecting others. Through the Master and Doctoral level-programs, many agree that Capes tends to compel academics in the aforementioned developed regions to claim success of the agency's programs even when at the cost of alienating many other universities who do not agree with the training polices and are not invited to be a part of the policy creation process. This article uses the theoretical Marxist framework to explain how this alienation has been implemented by Capes with the consent of the universities in Brazil. Lastly, this article exposes, discusses and offers legal solutions found within Brazil's Constitution on how to break free from the established norms that have created this environment and reality of alienation of academics and universities in less developed regions of the country.

University; Alienation; Post-graduation Programs


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