Abstract
This research focuses the sequential courses, a way of vocational higher education introduced in Brazil in 1999. The aim of this study is to show a general overview on vocational education in Brazil, the development of sequential courses, about the Brazilian universities and the representative institutions of category (syndicates, regional counseling, federations and confederations) and the quality control. These courses, with two years lasting, were implemented to develop in the students older than sixteen the professional background. These sequential courses are in the beginning phases of implementation, so there are not researches about them yet. However, the interest in sequential courses is increasing since they were implemented. Data from Ministry of Education point that in 1999 were offered one hundred seventy-eight courses in Brazil, meantime in 2002 the offering was six hundred twelve courses. Although the data show the sequential courses have been well accepted by Brazilian students, it is not possible to notice, if they fulfill the students expectations. The methodology to this work was developed through a bibliographic review about vocational education. Beyond the students, this research considers other important institutions or involved elements with this pattern of education and sequential courses, among them the government, the representative counseling of category, the teachers and the universities. We observed that there are many relevant questions those deserve some reflection related to different parts of these courses such as: a) the lack of links between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour, which leads to problems of recognition of the sequential courses in the labour market; b) the different points of view of trade unions, with some against and others in favour of this new kind of training workforce in Brazil; and c) the controversy among universities whether it is their role to offer sequential courses in addition to regular undergraduate degrees, partly because of their concerns regarding the quality of these courses.
 
 Key words: vocational education - sequential courses - workforce.
Highlights
This research focuses the sequential courses, a way of vocational higher education introduced in Brazil in 1999
Palavras-chave: educação vocacional - cursos seqüenciais - força-de-trabalho. The focus of this part is to review the literature on vocational education and training, the so-called sequential courses, a form of higher education qualification recently introduced in Brazil
Unlike some European countries, in Brazil the Ministry of Education mainly carries out the evaluation process of sequential courses
Summary
This research focuses the sequential courses, a way of vocational higher education introduced in Brazil in 1999. Existem muitos pontos importantes a serem considerados na relação das diferentes partes envolvidas nos cursos seqüenciais, tais como: (i) a falta de ligação entre o Ministério da Educação e o Ministério do Trabalho, o qual levam a problemas de reconhecimento dos cursos seqüenciais por parte do mercado de trabalho; (ii) diferentes pontos de vista dos órgãos representativos de classe, com muitos de manifestando contra e outros favoráveis sobre esta nova forma de treinamento da força de trabalho; e (iii) existem controvérsias sobre o papel das universidades no oferecimento dos cursos seqüenciais somados a regularidade de oferecimento dos cursos de graduação principalmente em relação à qualidade dos cursos The focus of this part is to review the literature on vocational education and training, the so-called sequential courses, a form of higher education qualification recently introduced in Brazil. Both the assessment of their effect and acceptance by higher education institutions and unions permeate this study, which aims to investigate to what extent sequential courses meet students’ expectations in relation to the development of the specific skills required by the labour market, in the context social, economic, political and cultural transformations (PARANÁ, 1996) in the University under study, in Paraná State, South of Brazil
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