EDITORIAL

We would like to begin the editorial of this second issue of the journal Work, Education and Health with a special note on the public health physician, activist and politician Antônio Sérgio da Silva Arouca who died on 2nd August this year.

Much would have to be said to express Dr. Arouca's contribution to the political, technical and - why not mention it? - ideological organization of the Brazilian Health Service. Nothing seems more appropriate here than to give an overview of his thought and his actions. For this purpose, in this issue, Work, Education and Health republishes an interview granted by him to the magazine RADIS of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in October 2002. Although this interview represents only a tiny part of Dr.Arouca's contribution to the history of the Brazilian social and political movements, it does shed light on issues that are central to the public health scenario, particularly with regard to health policies, and in the context of the reorganization of the contemporary capitalist state.

Another four works in the present issue follow the same line of reflection on the reorganization of the state and on health and education policies. "State Reform: the private versus the public", by Roberto Leher, deals with the discourse favouring the state reform currently happening in Brazil, and concludes that this reform both deepens the country's dependent condition and increases its cultural heteronomy, although it does not exclude - quite the opposite - the elaboration of theories critical of the state in a non-capitalist society. In the debate "Funding the SUS - some issues for debate" Ruben de Mattos and Nilson do Rosário Costa discuss the challenges facing the Brazilian state with regard to the implementation and the development of the Brazilian Health Service. The article "Technical post-secondary courses: analysis of a possible relationship with the phenomenon of restricting the demand for the state universities" written by Sonia Regina Mendes, analyses, on the basis of an investigation of the school careers of students in technical post-secondary courses, the "non-manifest" orientations and the response to Federal Decree nº 2208/97 with regard to access to higher education. Finally, and still on the discussion about public policies on health and education, an account section examines the experience of the Training Programme for Local Agents of Vigilance in Health (Proformar) having as reference, on the one hand, the Sanitary Reform and the consolidation of the SUS and, on the other, the Law of Educational Guidelines and Bases.

This issue publishes yet another three articles, related to matters relevant to the organization of work and to professional training. Márcia Teixeira in her text "On the technical work carried out in laboratories for R&D in health: notes for professional education" focuses on the "invisible" practices of the organization of work and professional education in health laboratories, discussing the issues of specialization, qualification and division of labour in an area of health work that has not yet been the subject of much investigation in Brazil. "Work, education and health: the enigmatic point of view of the activity" by Jussara Brito and Milton Athayde, deals with the triad expressed in the title, on the basis of a programme of research and the education of state school workers. Based on empirical and analytical data, Ricardo Antunes, in "The polysemic and multifaceted nature of the world of labour", returns to the need to expand the definition of 'working class' - or in the author's words 'of the class that lives off work' - and the consequent challenging of the theses supporting the disappearance or the deconstruction of work as an ontological structuring category.

The essay by Lílian do Valle, entitled "Theory, determination, complexity: challenging issues in the reflection on education" focuses on the educational approaches using the models of the natural world, and points to the fact that, in order to reflect on the way of being characteristic of human beings, we must start with the human being himself/herself.

The magazine also presents reviews of three books: Pedagogia das competências: autonomia ou adaptação?, by Marise Ramos; Trabalho imaterial: formas de vida e produção da subjetividade, by Antônio Negri and Maurizio Lazzarato; and Agente comunitário de saúde: o ser, o saber, o fazer, by Joana Azevedo and Ana Sílvia Dalmaso.

Finally, we leave the reader with the challenges proposed by Sérgio Arouca for the 12th National Conference on Health - and for all those working in professional education in health - on the occasion of the launching of the first issue of Work, Education and Health, in 19th March 2003.

"The 12th National Conference on Health will be discussing the change in the welfare model and confronting an essential question, that of education, work and health. I have no doubt: this is a strategic issue that, so far, has not been equated, that is still unsolved. On the contrary, in the past few years it has become crucial, given the various forms of contracting out, the precarious contracts offered by cooperatives - both leading to a total failure to train and provide the necessary skills to workers in the health area, and to give them any job security whatsoever (...). For us it is a challenge (...) even to rethink about the contents of the new cycle in the management of work, in the organization of work, in the qualification of labour in the health area; (thoughts) that could be incorporated to the 12th Conference so that we can give that jump".

The editors

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  27 Nov 2012
• Date of issue
  Sept 2003