EDUCATION AND WORK FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CONTINUING TRAINING OF NON-TEACHING PROFESSIONALS AT HEIs

Abstract

This study aims to reflect on the categories of education and work from the perspective of the continuing education of non-teaching professionals who work invisibly in Brazilian public higher education institutions (HEIs), without having the opportunity to benefit from what these institutions themselves prophesy: a quality, emancipatory education capable of awakening in the individual actions that promote the necessary critique of the exploitative reproduction of the capitalist model, through scientific knowledge. The methodology, qualitative and bibliographical research, derives from theoretical studies recently conducted during our continuing education program and is based on historical materialism, based on authors such as Antunes (2012), Mészáros (2008), Paro (2013), and some relevant legislation. The results indicate that it is up to this category of workers—non-teaching professionals, here understood as administrative technicians working in HEIs—as participants in the educational process regulated by these institutions. They must strive to ensure that continuing education initiatives, at all levels of formal education, serve as a platform for the implementation of Training Plans that address the academic aspirations of these professionals, in addition to the development of professional competencies and skills conducive to productivism and, consequently, the alienation of labor. The conclusions indicate that, as thinking individuals, these professionals are expected to overcome the alienation imposed by Capitalism, transformed by the emancipatory action of productive labor, with a view to redefining their role, so that they can effectively contribute to ensuring that education, understood in its broadest sense, becomes an instrument of social transformation for others and for themselves.