A política de educação infantil em Alagoas: pontos e contrapontos entre a garantia do direito à educação das crianças de 0 a 5 anos, o financiamento público e as responsabilidades federativas

Abstract

This thesis proposes an analysis of the childhood education policy in Alagoas, since the legal institution of education as a right of children from 0 to 5 years old, considering the role of public funding and of federative responsibilities for the effectiveness of access and service quality conditions. It was defined as dimensions of this analysis, the delineation of the law and conceptions of childhood and early childhood education within the scope of normative and practical aspects of the management in the organization of care and in direct relation with the public financing policy and with the federative responsibilities towards early childhood education instituted by the Brazilian State, seeking to point out the main advances and challenges regarding the guarantee of access and quality of care offered, during the last two decades (2000 to 2020) and having as locus three cities in Alagoas. The theoretical frame of reference is based on studies about the social history of childhood and about early childhood education, on studies about the State, public educational policies and public management and studies about public funding and the Brazilian federative model from the perspective of the public education quality. The study is a qualitative research, with a theoretical-methodological aspect based on Ball's Policy Cycle Approach. In addition to the bibliographic research, we opted for documental research, about official documents from the federal, state and municipal spheres on early childhood education, and for field research, through interviews with technicians from the early childhood education sector of the municipal education secretariats investigated. The data were organized using Bardin’s “Content Analysis”. The results indicate that, in Alagoas, the early childhood education policy instituted, presents advances in the expansion of access to early childhood education, especially to day care centers, and some improvements in the conditions of care and operation, however, it is far from reaching the goals provided for in the education plans and a level of quality within the established minimum standards. The public funding and the established collaboration regime need to be improved and expanded to achieve more consistent results according to the demand that is unattended or in precarious conditions. It was concluded that the state of Alagoas still has great challenges to guarantee the universalization of care in preschools and to expand access to day care, as well as consolidate the foundations of a quality social service that represents an early childhood education project that respects rights and specificity of childhood, embodied in inseparable care and education shared between the State, society and family, and which ensures a continuous and global process of integral development for all of them. The State of Alagoas has failed to guarantee access, the inadequacy of physical spaces and material and human resources, in the implementation of the social policy to legitimize children subject to rights.