O Papel Transformador da Educação na EJA - EPT

Abstract

This research discusses the transformative role of Youth and Adult Education integrated with Professional and Technological Education (EJA-EPT), understood not as compensatory policy but as a project of social emancipation. Grounded in the Brazilian critical education tradition, particularly in the work of Freire, Gramsci, Saviani, Frigotto, Ciavatta, and Ramos, the study is premised on the understanding that EJA-EPT, when articulated within a consistent political-pedagogical project, contributes to the formation of critical and reflective subjects capable of understanding and transforming their social reality. The general objective is to investigate the transformative role of EJA-EPT in integral human formation, analyzing its potential and challenges in light of contemporary social and labor market demands. Specific objectives include: analyzing the relationship between work and education from an emancipatory perspective; evaluating the role of EJA-EPT in social inclusion and the reduction of regional inequalities; examining the tensions between the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC), the New Secondary Education Reform (Law 13.415/2017), and EJA-EPT; and investigating retention strategies for students with disabilities and neurodivergence. The methodology is bibliographic in nature, with a qualitative approach and dialectical analysis, using the descriptors “teaching,” “EJA,” “EPT,” and “social transformations” in databases such as SciELO, Google Scholar, and BDTD, with a temporal scope of 2022 to 2024, articulated with classical theoretical frameworks. Results show that EJA-EPT holds emancipatory potential in fostering critical subjects, contributes to professional qualification and the reduction of inequalities, and that innovative methodologies and democratic school management are key factors for student retention. However, significant structural obstacles were identified: discontinuity of public policies, precarious teaching conditions, tensions arising from recent curricular reforms, and the persistence of a neoliberal logic that tends to reduce education to immediate employability. It is concluded that EJA-EPT, guided by the integration of work, science, culture, and citizenship, represents an instrument of social transformation that demands sustained investment in public policies ensuring quality, equity, and inclusion.