from VCCA Journal, Volume 3, Number 2, Fall/Winter 1988, 10-14
© Copyright 1988 VCCA Journal
Partners of the Americas is the largest people-to-people organization linking the citizens of the U.S. with those of Latin America and the Caribbean. Under this program, the Commonwealth of Virginia is linked with the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil. There have been numerous exchanges, underwritten in part by a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development, between Santa Catarina and Virginia in the fields of medicine, agriculture, sports, and education.
Piedmont Virginia Community College has entered into an exchange with Escola Technica Tupy located in Joinville, the largest city in Santa Catarina. First contact between the two schools was made in the spring of 1986 when Bob Templin, then the dean of instruction at PVCC, met with the administration of ETT while in Brazil as a Kellogg Fellow. In November 1986 the head of the data processing department from ETT, since promoted to Director of the school, visited PVCC for two weeks. That summer the head of the data processing program at PVCC spent two weeks at ETT. In November 1987 two faculty from ETT, one in data processing and one in computer aided design, visited PVCC, and in the summer of 1988 we travelled to ETT.
The primary bond between ETT and PVCC is an instructional program in data processing, and the main goal of our trip was to evaluate and assist that program. ETT is a professional technical high school akin to the professional high schools in the U.S. where part of the day is spent on academic courses and part of the day is spent in professional subjects. ETT's primary goal is to graduate young people who are technically educated so that they can go to work in the sponsoring industries and the quality of this education appears to be very good. Twenty percent of their graduates go on to the university, but this is not considered a desired goal since the supporting industries (who supply 40% of the school's funding) want and need trained workers.
The school's classes are structured like U.S. high school classes. Sections of between 30 and 40 students attend all classes together. Teaching methods are a combination of lecture and immediate application of the subject. In the case of data processing, this means that they learn a function and then go to the computer and try it under the direction of a lab instructor.
A difference in terminology led to some confusion. In Brazil a college is a secondary school. Post-secondary education is found at universities. We were never able to make it clear that PVCC is not a high school. To complicate matters somewhat, all Brazilian teachers are addressed as professor.
Escola Technica Tupy was founded twenty nine years ago as a part of the Tupy Foundry. Its purpose was to graduate trained technical workers for the foundry that would be educated well enough so that they could, in time, develop into skilled workers and supervisors.
About fifteen years ago, the school became independent of Tupy Foundry and is now under the aegis of the Sociedade Educacional De Santa Catarina. The society is made up of approximately sixty firms in Joinville and supplies about 35% of the school's funds with Tupy still providing the greatest share. The federal government gives about 42%, and student tuition accounts for 23% of the operating funds.
Initial programs were in the areas of metallurgy, mechanics and general education. Data processing became a program in the early eighties. All students take general education courses which comprise about half of their class load. Most students attend ETT in the morning session or in the afternoon session five days a week. In the evening, there are three programs designed for adult learners who are working during the day.
The first of the adult education programs is a high school where workers who have not finished the secondary education level can enroll. This program takes three years to complete. The second program is for workers who have finished secondary school but want the technical training. This program takes two years to complete. The third program is for workers, supervisors, and lower level managers who need specialized management courses. This program also includes a newly established computer science discipline. These programs are taught by the ETT faculty except for the computer science courses which are taught by the local technical university faculty and industry professionals. This third program takes one year to complete. Admissions to all three evening programs are extremely competitive with ratios of applicants to matriculants as high as 30 to 1.
ETT also trains employees of various firms who come and use its facilities, but they do not receive academic credit. This specialized training, of short duration, is usually in machine shop work, foundry work, or model making.
In addition to its educational mission, ETT functions as a service organization. Small foundries and manufacturing companies use its facilities for specialized services and offer the ETT faculty as consultants for these businesses. The ETT foundry also accepts jobs that cannot be handled by small companies which may need a metal part cast but do not have a foundry.
ETT also functions as a research organization. The research department has developed its facilities and expertise to the extent that it can duplicate industrial problems and then attempt to solve them, providing yet another service to sponsoring firms.
Activities
We had several opportunities to interact with students in classrooms and in informal meetings on campus. We also enjoyed several meetings with the faculty, addressing all of them on two occasions and speaking with the data processing faculty in four separate meetings. We also met with the coordinators and senior faculty in all of the academic areas. Because of widespread instruction in English at the school, there was little language problem in casual conversations. When we were engaged in more serious discussion where subtleties became important, an interpreter was generally used to avoid misunderstandings.
Our classroom contact was with two data processing sections, a first year class and a third year class, most of whom would graduate in December. Their questions were fairly consistent: What kinds of computers did we have? What computer languages did we teach? How long were our classes? What did we think about operating software? What did we think about Brazil's refusal to import foreign produced computers? What did we do with a student that we found cheating? They were also very interested in the types of jobs that our graduates could expect to get.
We came away from these meetings with the feeling that ETT attracts very good students, knows what it is doing, and conducts its programs well. This impression was reinforced by comments that we received on the tours of various manufacturing plants that have ETT graduates working for them.
We do have some differences in educational philosophies, but this is in part because ETT is a secondary school with students ranging from 14 to 18 years of age, while PVCC is a community college with students averaging 27 years of age. Again, we are not sure that either the ETT student body or the faculty really understood our concept of "college."
Results
From our meetings with students, faculty, and administrators, we concluded that ETT has a well thought out educational philosophy. It appears to be successful in achieving its mission. We did, however, identify four areas which seemed to be typical of the region, if not of all Brazil, where positive changes could be made:
1. Textbooks. There are none. Students do not have take-home texts; all of their knowledge is from lectures, notes and practical hands-on experience. This means that the students' exposure to the material is limited to what the instructor can cover in class; they have no reference material other than their notes, the quality of which must depend on their abilities to listen and record lecture material. Frequently mentioned was the fact that texts cost too much for the students to own personal copies. We suggested that the school purchase the books and rent them to the students. Apparently this idea seemed to have great appeal.
2. Teacher Education. Fifty percent of the faculty do not have university degrees. They do not receive tuition assistance if they go to night school, and they do not get paid enough to allow them to teach a reduced load while continuing their own studies. The school skims off its best students to train as faculty. Paying a lower salary to non-university graduates seems to be a major incentive for this practice. While ETT is able to hire very bright people this way, it is admittedly a short sighted practice since the faculty is made up of narrow practitioners rather than university graduates who may have a broader theoretical background.
3. Library. The ETT library is poor by any standard and needs double the space to provide for study areas away from the noise of the stack area. The books are mostly paperbacks and in poor condition. In view of the lack of personal textbooks, the library needs a large stock of permanently bound research volumes and texts as well as work areas where they can be used.
4. English Education. The English language program is doing well, but needs more materials. They have asked for books and videos-- books to improve reading and vocabulary, and videos to improve hearing, recognition and sentence patterns.
To determine its future, ETT is conducting a self evaluation which may emphasize post-secondary education. This change would bring it closer to a community college as we know it. The emphasis would, perhaps, still be on complete educational programs, but with little opportunity for someone wanting to take an individual course such as a BASIC programming.
Our discussions at the school, in the community, and at local industry revealed a distance between the people and their government. The feeling was that if something needed to be done there was no point in waiting for the government to make a change since it appeared to be unresponsive to the people. This perception became particularly apparent with regard to the public education system through uniformly negative comments. There simply does not seem to be a policy or philosophy for public education, and there appears little hope that the authorities will initiate one in the near future. Instead, the government takes the position that improvement of public education must come from concerned people, both parents and educators. There is a fledgling movement to initiate educational reform in Joinville similar to our parent-teacher association.
Ample opportunity exists for the Partners of the Americas and for interested volunteers to become involved in this effort since interest in educational models at all levels of schooling is prevalent. The best interests of the community, the industry, and the country would be served if this movement was encouraged and assisted.
Follow up
Escola Technica Tupy will send the coordinator of its general studies department to PVCC this fall, and we will send an administrator to ETT next summer as a means of expanding the scope of the exchange program. In addition, PVCC has promised to assist ETT in the following areas:
We have also promised to assist them with their self evaluation, to provide them with materials on the community college movement in the U.S., and to give whatever technical assistance they may need.
As a result of the exchange of faculty and administrators that has taken place, there are many individuals at ETT and PVCC who have established cordial relationships. Keeping these relationships alive through correspondence provides an excellent opportunity to continue an exchange of ideas and to increase our awareness of the needs of ETT and Santa Catarina.
Raymond F. Brogan is Assistant Professor of Data Processing at Piedmont Community College. He is a member of Partners for the Americas and has spent two years in an overseas faculty exchange program.
David L. Priddy is an Associate Professor of Economics at Piedmont Community College and a member of Partners for the Americas.