AÇÕES EMPREENDIDAS NA EDUCAÇÃO DE JOVENS E ADULTOS EM ANGICOS

50 anos depois das 40 horas

Abstract

In the year 2013 was celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of 40 Horas de Angicos, pioneering experience of adult literacy, undertaken by the educator Paulo Freire, who in 1963 literate 300 farmers in semi ‑arid region of Rio Grande do Norte . Freire’s work, which is part of a context of campaigns and projects to combat illiteracy in Brazil in the twentieth century, assumed a prominent role among the major movements in the field of Adult Education and Popular Education, in accor‑dance with their pedagogical approach that combined literacy politicization of the subject. In the mid ‑twentieth century to the present day, campaigns, projects and programs have succeeded without reaching the goals they have set. The reasons for failure are explained in terms of economic, political or social factors, which gives us the impression of inertia, the result of impotence or political will of the Brazilian government to change the reality in the field. After 50 years of Freire action, Angicos has an estimated illiteracy rate of around 26.34%, which corre‑sponds to, in absolute numbers, more than 3000 people! In this paper, we discus about the efforts of the City Department of Education, the State Department of Education and Culture and the Federal Rural University of the Semi ‑Arid (Ufersa) on the occasion of signing the Paulo Freire Pact for EJA in 2013.