Avaliação do Programa Nacional de Assistência Estudantil - PNAES destinada ao Campus Benfica-Fortaleza da Universidade Federal do Ceará, no período da COVID 19 (2020-2021)

Abstract

The National Student Assistance Program (PNAES) is part of a national public policy to assist low-income students enrolled in face-to-face undergraduate courses at federal higher education institutions who are socioeconomically vulnerable. In this context, some authors were approached to understand social inequality and socio-economic vulnerability, seeking an understanding of the economy and development in the Brazilian context, from the perspective of public policies and their formulation, according to the configurations of the Brazilian state. Based on the author's professional training at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) and, as a student of the professional master's degree in public evaluation, the PNAES public policy implemented by the Federal University of Ceará, on the Benfica campus in Fortaleza, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the years 2020 and 2021, was evaluated. The aim was to obtain answers to the reality of the use of budget allocations in this policy, in the face of a repressed social demand on the part of students who require student assistance. The perspective of indepth evaluation (RODRIGUES, 2008) was taken as one of the methods to guide this research. The evaluation of the UFC's Student Assistance Policy was based on four aspects: the historical context of its creation; the trajectory of this policy at the UFC; an analysis of the content of the policy's regulations; and the temporal and territorial spectrum of the implementation of this policy on the Benfica campus (located in Fortaleza), as well as the use of semi-structured interviews and content analysis to capture the meanings and paths of the policy in focus. In addition, an examination of relevant analytical categories to the research topic was carried out, such as vulnerability, social inequality, spending on public policy and permanence. To achieve the objective of this evaluative research, a descriptive study with a qualitative approach was carried out. In this sense, based on the collection of data on the pandemic, contextualizing the political and economic situation experienced by PNAES users, to diagnose the use of the budget in the actions in focus in the sectors that operate the PNAES, and the UFC's own budget were aimed at. Other actors were also involved, such as teachers, students' parents and other PNAES managers at the UFC.