Assistência estudantil no Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia da Paraíba/ Campus João Pessoa: contradições, limites e desafios para a atenção aos estudantes do ensino superior

Abstract

The present study had the objective of analyzing the Student Assistance Policy of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Paraiba – João Pessoa Campus in the students' perception regarding the fulfillment of their institutional objectives. For that, we developed a study of applied nature, using the method of historical approach, exploratory nature and with a quantitative and qualitative approach. This is a case study developed with students contemplated by the Student Assistance Program of the Interior Design major, because it is the major that most interested in enrolling in the Student Assistance programs offered by the João Pessoa Campus, as well as the high percentage of students from families with a per capita income of up to 1,5 minimum wage. The collected data were treated from the perspective of content analysis (BARDIN, 2002). The results of this study point to a process of ignorance on the part of the students of the objectives of the Student Assistance Policy, reducing it to the financial support of food, transportation and housing programs, ignoring institutional services that will effectively make it possible to stay there. The IFPB Student Assistance Policy is limited to the financial transfer to students through specific programs that reinforce the logic of transfer of resources through income transfer, present in most Brazilian Social Policies. Such systematics contributes to the lack of clarity and distinction between the peculiarities that exist between Student Assistance and Public Social Assistance Policy. In our results, we highlight the profile change of the students along the process of institutional evolution in history, currently having a campus of brownish and black color, with a population from families with per capita income of up to 1,5 minimum wage, graduates of public schools and that have parents with low schooling. We emphasize the inexistence of actions that aim at the pedagogical accompaniment of these students, and the lack of understanding of the role of the Student Assistance in its academic trajectory. The institutional concern for prioritizing the attendance of the material demands placed on by the students was evident, and the strategies for the attention of their symbolic demands, whose focus is based on the construction of spaces of sociability, were not evident. The budgetary limitation for the development of more effective actions in view of the expansion process of the Institution and the number of students who have guaranteed access, has become a worthy aspect, given the current socioeconomic and cultural reality of students, demanding a better attention. Finally, we make contributions based on the students' reports, presenting strategies capable of generating a collective process of advancement in Institutional Policies, giving a voice to the students in the construction of the IFPB Student Policy within the scope of the João Pessoa Campus.