Brazil’s National System for the Evaluation of Higher Education: Context, Challenges and Perspectives

Robert Evan Verhine,Lys Maria Vinhaes Dantas

doi:10.24220/2318-0870v26e2021a5312

Abstract

This article discusses the implementation of the National System for the Evaluation of Higher Education (SINAES) from its inception in 2004 to present times, giving special attention to advances achieved and to the challenges that must be met in the near future. After a discussion of higher education quality assurance from an international perspective, the text examines adjustments that have been made to operationalize the implementation of the SINAES model and then emphasizes the importance of improving the self-evaluation component of the System. The article concludes by addressing the challenges that must still be met, such as the inclusion within SINAES of state higher education systems, the improvement of indicators and external evaluators, the effective utilization evaluation results, the need to distinguish evaluation processes from regulation policies, and the possibility of transforming the existing framework into a multidimensional evaluation model.

Highlights

Of the 85 institutions of the Western world that have existed since the 15th century, 70 are universities (Kerr,1982)
The worldwide concern for Higher Education quality assurance first became dominant in the 1980s and 1990s, related to a more general tendency to promote public-service accountability through the creation of what has been labeled the “evaluation state” (Dias Sobrinho, 2003)
This approach responded to a discovery through experience, according to which academics only accepted external evaluation when conducted by fellow academics (Rhodes; Sporn, 2002)

Summary

Introduction

Of the 85 institutions of the Western world that have existed since the 15th century, 70 are universities (Kerr,1982). The adjustments involving the CPC, IGC, IDD, ENADE, and ENEM have been referred to as the alphabet of SINAES (Polidori, 2009) Taken together, they attest to the dynamic nature of the original model and have helped make it a viable instrument for assuring and promoting the quality of Higher Education. Another study analyzed 172 institutional reports and concluded that five years after SINAES was implemented: (1) participation on the part of the academic community tends to be very limited; (2) there is little consistency between the evaluation results and the institution’s context; (3) most of the reports in the sample were devoid of indepth analysis and interpretations; and (4) only 13.4% of the said reports could be judged as complete and of satisfactory quality (Brasil, 2011) These findings are worrisome if one considers the centrality of self-evaluation processes within SINAES’conceptual model. This approach would allow successful evaluators to receive the deserved recognition and those new to the field to become increasingly qualified over time

Result utilization

Findings

Brasília