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The Minister of Education, Camilo Santana, confirmed that there will be no changes to the National High School Exam (Enem). Asked about the reform of secondary education, he said that a bill proposing changes to the model, which is in its second year of validity, should be sent to Congress later this month.
“We are not going to change Enem in the coming years. Not now, not in 2024”, said the minister in an interview during the International Congress of Education Journalism (Jeduca), in São Paulo.
The minister also stated that the discussion about the Enem format will take place with the debate on the next National Education Plan (PNE). Every ten years, this law is reviewed to define goals and guidelines for the sector, but sending the project to the Legislature is delayed.
There was an expectation that next year's test would be in a different format, aligned with the New Secondary Education (NEM), which brought changes to the curriculum and the offer of optional subjects.
However, with the harsh criticism of the new teaching format in Brazilian schools, the changes to Enem ended up temporarily suspended. The decision, however, was not well received by students, and among those in public education.
Their argument is that, with the current reduced workload of traditional subjects (such as physics, chemistry or history) in the New High School, they will present gaps in the general knowledge required by Enem in the traditional model, which will now be maintained in 2024.
As for the New Secondary Education, the minister said that there will be no changes for next year, because there will not be time, but he stated that the bill to be sent to Congress will propose the following changes to the model:
– More restricted training itineraries: This measure meets a demand from state networks to define a basis for the itineraries in order to reduce inequality in the supply of these subjects. While some schools offer variety with different options to their students, there are public schools without sufficient infrastructure, which means that students have to study topics that are not of interest to them.
– Return to the 2,400-hour workload for BNCC subjects: The objective is to reduce the workload of optional subjects so that the classic subjects provided for in the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC), such as mathematics and Portuguese, return to 2,400 hours. The total workload of 3,000 hours (at the end of the three years of high school) would be maintained.
– Option of full technical education with 2,100 hours of general training hours: This is less than the 2,400 hours for other students, so that it is possible to offer a complete technical course in their training itineraries.
Depending on what is approved by the National Congress, there will be a transition phase for students who are already following the New High School in the classroom.