Ensino técnico público em agroecologia e produção orgânica no estado do Rio de Janeiro: o Colégio Técnico da Universidade Rural

Abstract

This work aimed to know the current situation of public vocational technical education in agroecology in the state of Rio de Janeiro (ERJ), as a contribution to the mapping of institutional initiatives in this field of knowledge. The research consisted of an inventory of secondary schools offering technical courses in agriculture and agroecology in the state. If the schools belong to the federal, state or municipal network, and if there is one or more schools in the country, the number of students enrolled in these courses, the private school network. It was observed that in 2017 there were 12 technical schools offering agricultural and agroecology courses, federal, state and municipal, and a total of 1,118 students, of which 24% were trained in technicians in agroecology and 34% were trained in agricultural technicians with the discipline of agroecology. The study showed that the ERJ presented very few figures regarding the professional qualification of young people in the area of agroecology, and of a total of 92 municipalities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, only two have institutions offering the Technical course in Agroecology, the municipalities of Seropédica and Cambuci. The case of the Technical College of the Rural University (CTUR), pioneer in the creation of the technical course in agroecology in the state, was privileged for its insertion in the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro and a partnership with Embrapa Agrobiologia and Pesagro-Rio. This case is identified as a resistance project in the scenario of dismantling professional public education in the field of agricultural science in the ERJ. Semi-structured questionnaires were applied to a sample of students of the course in order to know the profile of the students and their expectations regarding their future professional performance. The research identified that the students of the CTUR are, in their majority, adolescents of the city of Rio de Janeiro, that is, they are not of rural origin. Only a third of the students reported being optimistic about their professional future, possibly expressing what scholars call a new rurality or having expectations of work in the area of urban agriculture