Financiamento da educação superior: um estudo sobre a internacionalização no Instituto Federal da Paraíba (IFPB)

Abstract

In recent decades, the process of internationalization of Federal Institutions of Higher Education (IFES) has been strengthening and expanding its concepts and actions in the quest to train citizens to work in the world of work, within a globalized society, where distances are reduced with expansion of technology use. The time frame of this research was the period from 2018 to 2021. Within this time frame, institutions needed to review their teaching and work methodologies, in view of the pandemic caused by COVID-19, which forced the whole world to maintain the social distancing and people needed to study and work remotely. Faced with this challenging scenario, the internationalization area had to think of new systematics. In this context, the objective of this work was to identify the internationalization strategies of the Federal Institute of Paraíba (IFPB). The research investigated how higher education funding is allocated to the internationalization process; in addition to identifying the internationalization strategies in the main institutional documents of the Federal Institute of Paraíba. With regard to the methodology adopted, the documentary research was theoretically based on the teachings of Berrogain (2022), Knight (2020), Brito(2020), Morosini (2019) Wit et al., in addition to other authors. The research mapped the main normative instruments and official documents of the IFPB, in order to present a picture of the internationalization within the institution. The research universe had the International Relations Office (ARINTER) as the study site, which is responsible for the internationalization policies of the aforementioned institution. During the analysis and discussion of the results, it was possible to identify several strategic actions such as the creation of ARINTER, regulation of the internationalization policy, in addition to giving visibility to the area in institutional normative instruments. The study also identified challenges to be overcome, such as the absence of a budget and financial forecast for the area. Thus, the financing of higher education focused on the context of internationalization becomes a challenge not only for the IFPB, but for all Federal Institutions of Higher Education (IFES), as it is often seen as an expense and not as an investment. At the end of the work, it is concluded that the IFPB has been moving towards building an internationalized academic space through strategic actions outlined in the main internal normative documents.