EDITORIAL
The triennial review of Área 21's graduate programs
The second half of 2013 was markexd by intense activity of the Triennial Assessment of CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), specifically Área 21, in which Physiotherapy is inserted, in addition to Physical Education, Speech- Language Therapy and Occupational Therapy.
At the end of that three year period, it can be seen that Área 21 grew 22%, going from 41 programs in the 2007-2009 triennium to 51 in 2010-2012, excluding the opening of Doctoral courses in existing programs, and, today, 50% of the Graduate Programs have Doctoral courses. The area's growth occurred not only quantitatively, but also in their qualitative aspects, which can be seen by the growing number of courses with higher grades. For the first time in the history of the area, there is a Graduate Program graded 7 - Physical Education/USP, in addition to the other four with grade 6 - Motricity Sciences/UNESP Rio Claro, Physiotherapy/UFSCar, Rehabilitation Sciences/UFMG and Human Communication Disorders/UNIFESP, which refers to the quality of the activities, and the programs' commitment and contribution to establish benchmarks.
Regarding the distribution of Graduate Programs, Physical Education presents greater uniformity, being present in most Brazilian regions; Speech-Language Therapy focuses on the Southeast and South regions and Physiotherapy, in the Southeast, South and Northeast. Occupational Therapy presents only one program in the Southeast. In a broader analysis, we associate the distribution of Graduate Programs with undergraduate courses that maintain a similar distribution, with a demand for teachers and doctors.
Área 21 required intensive restructuring work to meet its demand. In the period 2010-2012, 10 Graduate Programs were incorporated, one of which was a Professional Master's and another that can be offered with Master's and Doctoral Courses. The concern of the area with the low proportion of proposals approved (approximately 30%), in particular on courses whose professional nature present a significant demand in the area and still have problems in their proposals can be highlighted. Actions are required for new proposals to meet the quantitative and qualitative minimum requirements for the opening of new courses, as described in the Area Document.
One of the major changes in the guidelines of Área 21 refers to the number of guidelines per faculty member, which had a significant increase in three years, going from 3-6 guidelines per faculty member to 4-8 when the offering of Master's and Doctorate courses began. Such action aims especially to increase the number of PhDs in the area.
Another widely discussed point that was implemented in this triennium concerns the intellectual production, especially valuing production items in higher strata, which allowed the area to point to the need for further qualification of products rather than just quantitative aspects. Despite the increase in quality, there was a significant increase in the quantity of products in comparison to the previous three years. Furthermore, the area's mean and median had significant increases and grew from 500 and 300 points to 600 and 400 points respectively.
One aspect that requires continuous monitoring of the area is the small number of indexed international journals that cater adequately to the fields of study and research lines of the programs, i.e., which present a strong adherence to subareas.
Finally, the distribution of concepts demonstrates that Área 21 is in consolidation, since, in this triennium, there was an increase in the number of Graduate Programs with grade 4 or higher, despite the large percentage of programs with grade 3, resulting from its recent entry in the system.
André Luiz Felix Rodacki
Área 21 Coordinator
Maria Cecilia Martinelli Iorio
Área 21 Deputy Coordinator
Rinaldo Roberto de Jesus Guirro
Área 21 Deputy Coordinator of Professional Master's
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
23 Jan 2014 -
Date of issue
Dec 2013
