A privatização do ensino público básico em Minas Gerais: o projeto somar e suas implicações

Abstract

The present study, employing a qualitative approach, aims to analyze the context of implementation and the effects of a project that involves the shared management of high school education through partnerships with nonprofit Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) within the state education network of Minas Gerais during the administration of Romeu Zema (2019– present), known as the Somar Project. The theoretical framework chosen was the philosophy of Michel Foucault, supported primarily by authors such as Christian Laval and Pierre Dardot, while not entirely abandoning Marxist structuralist analyses, including studies by Luiz Carlos de Freitas. Regarding the methodological procedures, the study was inspired by Foucaultian discourse analysis. The research involved a documentary analysis, compiling an archive that examined the project’s public notices and the technical reports produced by the Evaluation and Monitoring Commission of the Minas Gerais State Department of Education (SEE/MG). Additionally, interviews were conducted with teachers, and questionnaires were applied to students within the project's context. This research thus contributed to significant issues, such as engaging critically with the current political context, which is dominated by neoliberal logic and the transformations it proposes for basic education. The analysis of the discourses revealed that the Somar Project aligns with a broader movement of reconfiguring educational policies under the neoliberal paradigm. This process is not merely administrative but also symbolic and subjective, as it redefines the purposes of public education, shifting its focus from social emancipation to a market-driven logic. As an educational product, the research presents the podcast "Beyond the Surface: Reflections on the Somar Project.