A BNCC e os interesses empresariais: simbioses entre o Público e o Privado na Educação

BNCC and business interests: symbioses between Public and Private in Education

BNCC y los intereses empresariales: simbiosas entre lo Público y Privado en la Educación

Kélli Renata Corrêa de Mattos

Federal University of Santa Maria, Santa Maria, RS, Brazil

kelli.mattos@acad.ufsm.br

Micheli Bordoli Amestoy

State University of Ponta Grossa, Ponta Grossa, PR, Brazil

mbamestoy@uepg.br

Luiz Caldeira Brant de Tolentino-Neto

Federal University of Santa Maria, Santa Maria, RS, Brazil

luiz.neto@ufsm.br

Received: March 26, 2024

Accepted: June 14, 2024

Published: May 7, 2025

RESUMO

A reforma curricular para educação básica brasileira, por meio da Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC), tem movimentado o mercado educacional. As demandas após a BNCC, configuram-se uma oportunidade para a lucratividade empresarial, acentuando a atuação privada na rede pública de ensino, por meio da venda de soluções educacionais. Diante disso, este artigo tem como objetivo evidenciar as influências do mercado no processo de elaboração e de atuação da BNCC em produções científicas. Para isso, realizou-se a análise de uma revisão bibliográfica de Teses e Dissertações no Catálogo CAPES e na Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações (BDTD). As 13 Dissertações e 4 Teses analisadas abordam as relações entre a BNCC, o mercado e o Ciclo de Políticas de Stephen Ball e colaboradores. A análise evidencia as influências do setor privado tanto na idealização/construção da BNCC como em sua atuação e o viés privatista que esses reformadores empresariais agregam ao discurso de qualidade educacional. Além disso, pode-se constatar dois principais objetivos mercantis com a Base: a lucratividade - amplamente discutida e reconhecida diante da vasta comercialização da educação - e o projeto societário - ainda pouco discutido e reconhecido, mas que se configura efetivamente preocupante, por descaracterizar a formação da identidade dos estudantes, reduzindo-os à capital humano.

Palavras-chave: Mercado educacional; Reformadores empresariais; Soluções educacionais.

ABSTRACT

The curricular reform of Brazilian basic education, through the National Common Curricular Base (Base Nacional Comum Curricular – BNCC), has energized the educational market. The demands arising after the BNCC represent an opportunity for business profitability, encouraging private participation in the public education system through the commercialization of educational solutions. Accordingly, this article aims to highlight the influence of the market on the development and implementation processes of the BNCC as identified in scientific productions. To this end, a literature review was conducted analyzing Theses and Dissertations available in the CAPES Catalog and the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações – BDTD). The 13 Dissertations and 4 Theses analyzed address the relationships between the BNCC, the market, and the Policy Cycle proposed by Stephen Ball and collaborators. The analysis reveals the influence of the private sector both in the conception/construction and the implementation of the BNCC, as well as the privatizing bias that these corporate reformers embed within the discourse on educational quality. Furthermore, two main commercial objectives of the Base are identified: the profitability – widely discussed and acknowledged in light of the vast commercialization of education – and the societal project – still underexplored and less recognized, yet effectively concerning, as it undermines the construction of the identities of students, reducing them to human capital.

Keywords: Educational market; Corporate reformers; Educational solutions.

RESUMEN

La reforma curricular de la educación básica brasileña, a través de la Base Curricular Común Nacional (BNCC), movió el mercado educativo. Las demandas después el BNCC establece una oportunidad de rentabilidad empresarial, acentuando la actividad privada en la red de educación pública, a través de la comercialización de soluciones educativas. Por lo tanto, este artículo tiene como objetivo resaltar las influencias del mercado en el proceso de elaboración y actuación del BNCC en las producciones científicas. Para ello, se realizó un análisis de revisión bibliográfica de Tesis y Disertaciones en el Catálogo Capes y en la Biblioteca Digital Brasileña de Tesis y Disertaciones (BDTD). Las 13 Disertaciones y 4 Tesis analizadas abordan las relaciones entre el BNCC, el mercado y el Ciclo Político de Stephen Ball y colaboradores. El análisis destaca las influencias del sector privado tanto en la idealización/construcción del BNCC como en su funcionamiento y el sesgo privatizador que estos reformadores empresariales añaden al discurso sobre la calidad de la educación. Además, con la Base hay dos objetivos comerciales principales: la rentabilidad -ampliamente discutida y reconocida frente a la gran comercialización de proyectos educativos y empresariales- todavía poco discutida y reconocida, pero que sí es preocupante, ya que caracteriza erróneamente la formación de la identidad de los estudiantes, reduciéndolos a capital humano.

Palabras clave: Mercado educativo; Reformadores empresariales; Soluciones educativas.

Initial considerations

The National Common Curricular Base (Base Nacional Comum Curricular –BNCC) within the field of educational policies was established as a State policy due to the legal obligation set forth by the Federal Constitution (Constituição Federal – CF) of 1988 (Brazil, 2018a; 1988). The proposal of a common curriculum for Brazilian basic education gained strength through subsequent laws such as the Law of Guidelines and Bases (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases - LDB/1996), the National Curriculum Guidelines (Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais – DCN), and the National Education Plan (Plano Nacional de Educação – PNE), Law no. 13.005/2014. However, until the approval of the BNCC in 2018, Brazil did not have a clear and mandatory national reference for schools. Figure 1 below illustrates the trajectory of educational legislation leading up to the BNCC.

Figure 1 – Public policies for basic education in Brazil and the formulation of the National Common Curricular Base

Source: Authors, 2025.

The Brazilian magna carta of 1988 reestablished democracy in the country, guaranteeing individual and social rights to citizens. The document legally ensures education as a right for all and made the State responsible for compulsory schooling (ages 4 to 17). It also established principles such as equal access and conditions for school attendance and the gratuity of public education (Brazil, 1988).

The document presented some initial proposals for the future of education, such as the stipulation of “minimum content for elementary education, in order to ensure a basic common education and respect for national and regional cultural and artistic values” (Brazil, 1988, art. 210).[1] This article did not refer to or justify the current BNCC but serves as a reference in aligning/directing public policies toward a national core curriculum.

In the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional – LDBEN) of 1996, Article 26 establishes that:

The curricula of early childhood education, elementary education, and secondary education must have a national common base, to be supplemented, within each education system and each school institution, by a diversified part, required by the regional and local characteristics of society, culture, economy, and students (Brazil, 1996, art. 26).[2]

The National Curriculum Parameters (Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais – PCN) of 1997 proposed a new curricular approach based on the development of skills and competencies (Brazil, 1997). The Parameters were well received by teachers, likely due to their suggestive character, since their guidelines were not established by law and, therefore, were not mandatory.

In the LDBEN (1996), the periodic elaboration of the National Education Plan (Plano Nacional de Educação – PNE) was sanctioned. Specifically, in Article 9, which lists the responsibilities of the Union, it defines the elaboration of the “National Education Plan, in collaboration with the States, the Federal District, and the Municipalities” (Brazil, 1996, art. 9, I).[3] The first PNE was developed in 2001 and remained in force until 2010 – Law no. 10.172/2001 (Brazil, 2001). The plan established educational guidelines, goals, and strategies for the decade.

The current PNE (2014–2024), approved by Law no. 13.005/2014, reinforced the commitment to implement a common curriculum in four of the 20 goals of the Plan. The listed goals are linked to the universalization of basic education (goals 2 and 3), the Basic Education Development Index (Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica – IDEB, goal 7), and teacher training (goal 15) (Brazil, 2014). The strategies related to the BNCC in each goal are, respectively:

Table 1 – PNE Goals related to the BNCC

Goal	Strategy
2	2.2	Establish agreements between the Union, the States, the Federal District, and the Municipalities, within the scope of the permanent body referred to in § 5 of Article 7 of this Law, for the implementation of the learning and development rights and objectives that constitute the national common curricular base for elementary education.
3	3.3	Establish agreements between the Union, the States, the Federal District, and the Municipalities, within the scope of the permanent body referred to in § 5 of Article 7 of this Law, for the implementation of the learning and development rights and objectives that will constitute the national common curricular base for secondary education.
7	7.1	Establish and implement, through intergovernmental agreements, pedagogical guidelines for basic education and the national common base of curricula, with learning and development rights and objectives for students at each year of elementary and secondary education, while respecting regional, state, and local diversity.
15	15.6	Promote the curricular reform of undergraduate teacher education programs and encourage pedagogical renewal, in order to ensure a focus on student learning, by dividing the total course load into general education, subject-area education, and specific didactics, and by incorporating modern information and communication technologies, in articulation with the national common base of curricula for basic education, as established in strategies 2.1, 2.2, 3.2, and 3.3 of this PNE.

Source: Prepared by the authors based on Law no. 13.005/2014.

Together with the PNE, the National Curriculum Guidelines for Basic Education (Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Educação Básica – DCN/EB) preceded the publication of the first version of the Base and prepared the ground for its arrival. It is worth noting that, with the arrival of the DCNs in 2010 (Resolution no. 4, of July 13, 2010), the PCNs ceased to be the main curricular reference for schools. The Guidelines, especially in their 14th article, strengthened the idea of a National Common Base for the entire basic education system, such that today, the BNCC and DCN coexist. The DCNs were last updated in 2018 (Resolution CNE/CEB no. 3, of November 21, 2018) and remain in force, even with the publication of the BNCC (Brazil, 2010; 2013; 2018b).

The political document of the BNCC underwent five versions, with substantial changes in its proposals, the most significant being the insertion of competencies and skills starting from the third version (Mattos, Amestoy, Tolentino-Neto, 2022). In 2015, between the construction of the first and second versions of the Base, an online public consultation on the document was promoted by the Ministry of Education (Ministério da Educação – MEC). According to the MEC, the number of contributions reached 12 million; however, whether or not these contributions were incorporated was not clarified, leaving room for questions regarding the actual democratization of the process (Micarello, 2016; Oliveira, 2018).

Furthermore, after the juridical-media-parliamentary coup against then-president Dilma Rousseff, the teams working on the construction of the document were dismantled. In this interim, Ordinance no. 790, of July 27, 2016, established a Steering Committee[I] composed of ‘specialists’ to draft a new version of the Base and to begin the reform of secondary education (Marsiglia et al, 2017; Marcondes, 2018).

In 2017, two new versions of the document were presented, with an educational proposal different from the previous ones. From the third version onward, the Base adopted an educational approach centered on the development of competencies and skills. The process became even more contentious as the voices of education researchers and the school community were neglected and silenced. Relevant associations in the area[II] issued multiple statements opposing the content of the Base and attempted to establish dialogue but received no response or engagement (Flôr; Trópia, 2018).

While the participation of those directly involved with education was hindered and ignored, movements such as Todos Pela Educação (All For Education – TPE), led and composed predominantly by the private sector, took on a leading role in the construction of the national curricular policy (Martins, 2016). The conceptualization and approval of the BNCC represent both the impact of neoliberal discourse on public policy and the intensification of the (re)organization of the state apparatus. TPE and the so-called Movimento Pela Base Nacional (Movement for the National Base – MPBN) are examples of Third Sector organizations that were actively engaged in and contributed to the construction of the BNCC (Mattos, Amestoy, Tolentino-Neto, 2023).

The approval of the BNCC in 2018 for all stages of basic education stands out as the most significant curricular reform in Brazil during the democratic period. The BNCC is understood as the outcome of a global agenda to be implemented locally, since this policy affects school curricula in all states and municipalities of the country (Hypolito, 2019). The effects of the policy go beyond curriculum design/adaptation and extend to teacher training, textbook production, and assessment systems. This scenario creates fertile ground for the insertion of the private sector into public schools through the sale of educational solutions (Gentili; Silva, 2015; Laval, 2019).

Thus, the academic debate has increasingly recognized that the curriculum model proposed by the BNCC represents the advancement of a hegemonic project for Brazilian education, driven by the action of various social actors within network governance, which, in turn, is predominantly represented by the corporate sector (Ball, 2014; Avelar; Ball, 2017; Freitas, 2018). In this context, this study is guided by the identification and analysis of scientific productions (theses and dissertations) that address the relationship between the BNCC and the private sector. Therefore, the aim of this article is to highlight the market influences in the process of elaboration and implementation of the BNCC.

Methodological approach

This text presents the analysis of a bibliographic review effort (Gil, 2002), registered with the Research Ethics Committee (Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa com Seres Humanos – CEP) of the Federal University of Santa Maria (Universidade Federal de Santa Maria – UFSM) under protocol number CAAE 29692620.4.0000.5346. A search for academic works was conducted in the CAPES Catalog of Theses and Dissertations and in the Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações – BDTD) of the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia – IBICT).

In both searches, the descriptors “Base Nacional Comum Curricular” (National Common Curricular Base) and “Parcerias Público-Privadas” (Public-Private Partnerships) were used, assisted by the Boolean operator AND. The selected time frame was from 2015 to 2022, corresponding to the beginning of the BNCC development period and the end of the data collection, in June 2022. The advanced search option was used on both platforms, considering all fields (title, subject, and abstract), and the filters applied delimited the area of knowledge to education and teaching. The searches were conducted in June 2022 on computers connected to the UFSM internet network.

Various combinations of descriptors were tested, and only those yielding relevant results are presented in the text – that is, those that generated potentially useful productions for inclusion in this study’s sample. The first search in the BDTD using the descriptors “Base Nacional Comum Curricular AND Parceria” (Partnership) yielded 24 results, while a second search using “Base Nacional Comum Curricular AND Público Privado” (Public-Private) resulted in 46 documents. In the CAPES Catalog, the descriptors that returned relevant results were “BNCC AND PPP” and “BNCC AND Público Privado,” which yielded 117 and 119 results, respectively. After identifying documents that addressed the BNCC–PPP relationship, a total of 10 productions remained from the BDTD and 38 from the CAPES Catalog.

It is important to note that the term Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) was applied flexibly, and descriptors related to the market were also considered, such as: partnership; private; company; market; agents; actors. Additionally, another inclusion criterion was defined during the search process: the use of the theoretical-methodological framework of the Policy Cycle (Ciclo de Políticas – CP) in education (Ball; Bowe; Gold, 1992; Ball; Bowe, 1992; Ball, 1994). This criterion aimed to select specifically works that addressed discussions about the influence of the market on education policies. It is assumed that studies addressing the BNCC and market issues through the analytical lens proposed by Ball will yield strong results for the purposes of this research.

Figure 2 – Delimitation based on the relational triad: BNCC (policy) – PPP (market) – CP (theoretical framework)

Source: Authors, 2023.

Through abstract reading, works that effectively grounded themselves in this triad were selected. From the 10 productions retrieved from the BDTD, only four established the relational triad. Of the 38 works from the CAPES Catalog, 13 addressed this relationship in their structure. Thus, 17 productions establish a correlation among BNCC – PPP – CP and constitute the corpus of this study.

The selected works will be analyzed through the lens of theoretical frameworks dealing with the commodification of education (Apple, 2005; Ball, 2014; Frigotto, 2000; Gentili; Silva, 2015; Laval, 2019); corporate reformers, PPPs, and privatization (Borghi, 2018; Freitas, 2012; Freitas, 2018; Freitas, 2020; Peroni, 2015; Ravitch, 2011); network governance perspectives (Adrião; Peroni, 2018; Avelar; Ball, 2017; Ball, 2014; Cóssio; Scherer, 2018; Olmedo, 2014; Shiroma; Evangelista, 2014); and the Policy Cycle itself (Ball; Bowe; Gold, 1992; Ball; Bowe, 1992; Ball; Junemann, 2012; Ball; Olmedo, 2013, Mainardes, 2018; Mainardes; Amestoy; Tolentino-Neto, 2024). From the CP framework, particular attention will be given to the context of influence, where power disputes and the roles of groups that influence and legitimize the political discourse are central.

Characterization of the theses and dissertations

This section is dedicated to the characterization of the selected academic works, including: title, author, year of publication, region, state, institution, and graduate program. Table 2 presents both the identification code and the type of work (T – Thesis or D – Dissertation), along with its credentials.

Table 2 – Information on the theses and dissertations that constitute the corpus of this article.

Code	Title	Author	Year	PPG	IES
D1	The BNCC Curricular Policy and Secondary Education: Curriculum and Context (A Política Curricular da BNCC e o Ensino Médio: Currículo e Contexto)	SOUZA, Gessica Mayara de Oliveira;	2020	PPGE	UFPB
D2	The National Common Curricular Base and Neoliberal Influences in Its Construction (A Base Nacional Comum Curricular e as Influências Neoliberais na sua construção)	RORIZ, Ernani Oliveira Martins;	2020	PPGE	PUC/GOIÁS
D3	Pedagogical Residency Program/CAPES: Differentiated Teacher Training in Pedagogy Programs? (Programa de Residência Pedagógica/CAPES: Formação Diferenciada de Professores em Cursos de Pedagogia?)	PRADO, Beatriz Martins dos Santos;	2020	PPGE	UNISANTOS
D4	National Common Curricular Base: A Critical Analysis of the Policy Document (Base Nacional Comum Curricular: Uma Análise Crítica do Texto da Política)	SILVA, Vanessa Silva da;	2018	PPGE	UFPEL
D5	Continuities and Discontinuities in the BNCC Versions for Early Childhood Education (Continuidades e Descontinuidades Nas Versões da BNCC para a Educação Infantil)	ROSA, Luciane Oliveira da;	2019	PPGE	UNIVALI
D6	The Contexts of Influence and Production of the National Common Curricular Base: A Focus on the School Subject Science (Os Contextos de Influência e Produção da Base Nacional Comum Curricular: Um Enfoque na Disciplina Escolar Ciências)	COSTA, Jessica Gomes das Mercês;	2021	PPGE	UESB
D7	The National Common Curricular Base and Babies (A Base Nacional Comum Curricular e os Bebês)	ESCOBAR, Iria Lopes;	2021	PPGE	UNIVALI
D8	Amazonian Curricular Reference and Physical Education: A Policy Under Discussion (Referencial Curricular Amazonense e a Educação Física: Uma Política em Discussão)	PEREIRA, Lorhena Alves;	2021	PPGE	UFAM
D9	National Common Curricular Base and the Construction of Meaning in Early Childhood Education: Between Contexts, Disputes, and Oblivion (Base Nacional Comum Curricular e Produção de Sentidos de Educação Infantil: Entre Contextos, Disputas e Esquecimentos)	SOUZA, Daiane Lanes de;	2018	PPGE	UFSM
D10	“Where There Is a Base, There Is Movement” of Business: Analysis of the Role of Private Actors from the Todos Pela Base Movement in Public State Networks in the Southeast Region (“Onde Tem Base, Tem Movimento” Empresarial: Análise da Atuação dos Atores Privados do Movimento Todos Pela Base nas Redes Públicas Estaduais da Região Sudeste)	CÓSTOLA, Andresa;	2021	PPGE	UNESP
D11	Adaptation of the Curriculum in Movement of the Federal District for the Early Years of Elementary Education to the BNCC (Adequação do Currículo em Movimento do Distrito Federal para os Anos Iniciais do Ensino Fundamental à Base Nacional Comum Curricular)	TAKEUTI, Adriana Mitiko do Nascimento;	2021	PPGE	UNB
D12	Public-Private Partnership: A Study on the Use of Workbook-Based Materials in Early Childhood Education in the Municipality of Irati-PR (Parceria Público Privado: Um Estudo sobre o uso de Material Apostilado na Educação Infantil no Município de Irati-PR)	CZEKALSKI, Elisandra Aparecida;	2019	PPGE	UNICENTRO
D13	National Common Curricular Base and Micropolitics: Analyzing the Guiding Threads (Base Nacional Comum Curricular e Micropolitica: Analisando os Fios Condutores)	ROCHA, Nathália Fernandes Egito;	2016	PPGE	UFPB
T1	National Common Curricular Base for Secondary Education: Curriculum, Power, and Resistance (Base Nacional Comum Curricular do Ensino Médio: Currículo, Poder e Resistência)	GOMES, Fabrício Augusto;	2019	PPGE	PUC/GOIÁS
T2	Political Disputes over School Physical Education in the National Common Curricular Base (Disputas Políticas pela Educação Física Escolar na Base Nacional Comum Curricular)	DESTRO, Denise de Souza;	2019	PPGE	UERJ
T3	The Construction of the National Common Curricular Base for Elementary Education and Its Relationship with School Knowledge (A Construção da Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC) para o Ensino Fundamental e sua relação com os Conhecimentos Escolares)	CORTINAZ, Tiago;	2019	PPGE	UFRGS
T4	National Common Curricular Base and Teaching: Discourses and Meanings (Base Nacional Comum Curricular e Docência: Discursos e Significações)	ROCHA, Nathália Fernandes Egito;	2019	PPGE	UFPB

Source: Authors, 2023.

Legend: D1 to D13 refer to Dissertations; T1 to T4 refer to Theses. PPG (Programa de Pós-Graduação) means Graduate Program; PPGE (Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação) means Graduate Program in Education. IES (Instituição de Ensino Superior) refers to Higher Education Institutions: UFPB – Universidade Federal da Paraíba; PUC/GOIÁS – Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Goiás; UNISANTOS – Universidade Católica de Santos; UFPEL – Universidade Federal de Pelotas; UNIVALI – Universidade do Vale do Itajaí; UFAM – Universidade Federal do Amazonas; UFSM – Universidade Federal de Santa Maria; UNESP – Universidade Estadual Paulista; UNB – Universidade de Brasília; UNICENTRO – Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste; UERJ – Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro; UFRGS – Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.

Based on Table 2, there is a predominance of dissertations in the sample, representing over 75% (13 out of 17), while theses account for less than 25% (4 out of 17) of the total sample. Regarding authorship, it is noteworthy that two works were authored by Nathália Fernandes Egito Rocha, as her master's research continued into her doctoral studies, and both met the criteria established for inclusion in this study’s sample. The years of publication of the selected works show some variation within the defined timeframe (2015–2022), with publications in 2016 (1 dissertation), 2018 (2 dissertations), 2019 (2 dissertations and 4 theses), 2020 (3 dissertations), and 2021 (5 dissertations).

This variation in the number of publications across years may be attributed to the complexity and depth of such works, which require years of development. From this perspective, the absence of publications in 2015 is understandable, as this was the year the first version of the BNCC was approved, and there was not enough time for the completion of substantial academic work on the topic.

Therefore, gaps may be found within the analyzed period, as is believed to be the case in 2017, when no qualifying works were identified. Subsequently, there is a notable increase in publications, particularly in 2019, when all four of the theses included in this study were published. It is important to emphasize that these data refer to the year of publication of the work, which aligns with the typical duration of doctoral research. For example, doctoral students who began their programs in 2015 would have completed their work around 2019.

In 2021, five dissertations were identified – highest number of this type of publication across the entire timeframe. In 2018, the final version of the BNCC for both Secondary Education (Ensino Médio – EM) and Elementary Education (Ensino Fundamental – EF) was officially approved, which may have influenced the increase in dissertations observed in 2021. The contentious nature of the BNCC’s development process, along with the time required for producing graduate-level work, may also help explain the low number of publications in 2018 (2) and 2020 (3). It is challenging to conceive of a document as the object of academic analysis when the document itself is not finalized, as was the case with the BNCC, which went through a series of revisions and versions during this period.

Regarding the geographic distribution of the selected works, the South region of Brazil presents the highest number of publications (6), spread across the three states in the region. Both studies from Santa Catarina (SC) originated from the University of Vale do Itajaí (Universidade do Vale do Itajaí – UNIVALI). The three studies from Rio Grande do Sul (RS) were produced at different institutions: the Federal University of Santa Maria (Universidade Federal de Santa Maria – UFSM), the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul – UFRGS), and the Federal University of Pelotas (Universidade Federal de Pelotas – UFPEL). Completing the South region, the state of Paraná is represented by a study from the State University of the Center-West (Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste – UNICENTRO).

The profile of the works from the South reveals that, in two states (RS and PR), public institutions have addressed the topic investigated in this study, with representation from both state-level (UNICENTRO) and federal-level institutions (UFSM, UFPEL, UFRGS). In Santa Catarina, the study was conducted at a private institution (UNIVALI).

Following the South, the Northeast region appears with four publications: three from the state of Paraíba (PB) and one from the state of Bahia (BA). The three studies from PB were produced at the Federal University of Paraíba (Universidade Federal da Paraíba – UFPB), while the study from BA came from the State University of Southwest Bahia (Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia – UESB). All works from the Northeast region were developed within Graduate Programs in Education at public institutions, three federal and one state. 

Next, both the Southeast and the Center-West regions are represented by three publications each. In the Southeast, two are from the state of São Paulo (SP) and one from the state of Rio de Janeiro (RJ). The works from SP were developed at the Catholic University of Santos (Universidade Católica de Santos – UNISANTOS) and the São Paulo State University (Universidade Estadual Paulista – UNESP), while the RJ study came from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – UERJ). As in the case of SC, in SP there is representation from private institutions, such as UNISANTOS, engaged in discussions about the Base and the educational market.

In the Center-West region, two studies are from the state of Goiás (GO) and one from the Federal District (Brasília – DF). The studies from GO were produced at the private institution Pontifical Catholic University of Goiás (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Goiás – PUC-Goiás), and the one from the DF came from the University of Brasília (Universidade de Brasília – UnB), a federal public institution. The Center-West region's works were also developed in the field of education.

Although the sample includes only one publication from the North region, specifically from the state of Amazonas (AM), affiliated with the Federal University of Amazonas (Universidade Federal do Amazonas – UFAM), the presence of at least one representative work from every region of Brazil is seen as a positive indication of nationwide academic engagement with the topic. The North aligns with the predominant profile of the sample, as the work also originates from a federal public institution.

Furthermore, it is important to highlight that all the publications across Brazil’s five major regions were produced within Graduate Programs in Education (Programas de Pós-graduação em Educação – PPG em Educação), as seen in Table 2. Among the selected works, there are no publications affiliated with graduate programs in the field of Teaching.

The legitimation of private interests in the development of the BNCC: philanthropic or philanthrocapitalist actors?

The involvement of the private sector has been evident since the early stages of the curricular reform proposal, gaining legitimacy with the conception and construction of the BNCC. Rosa (2019, p. 26), author of D5, highlights the power struggle during the initial phase of advocating for the Base, between a “a corporate group that has long propagated the discourse of quality education and a group of critical intellectuals resisting market demands and the colonization of education”.[4] Although this conflict of forces remained somewhat balanced for a time, the promises of educational modernization and funding to align other policies with the BNCC proposal ultimately secured greater gains for the corporate reformers.

Educational reforms have become a global trend, promoting the private sector as the sole entity capable of managing education, proposing solutions, and offering quality education. In the Brazilian context (despite the transnational nature of these actors), numerous private and third-sector organizations have taken part in educational policy formulation, including: Lemann Foundation, Ayrton Senna Institute, Todos Pela Educação (All for Education), Volkswagen, Roberto Marinho Foundation, Grupo Natura, Gerdau, among others (Bernardi; Uczak; Rossi, 2018; Caetano, 2020; Costa, 2021; Destro, 2019).

Souza (2020), in D1, identifies that the group which exerted the most influence in constructing the Base “was the so-called ‘Movimento pela Base’ (Movement for the Base), which comprises various companies and private groups, the most prominent being the Lemann Foundation, Todos pela Educação, and the Ayrton Senna Institute” (p. 18).[5] Thus, as Rosa (2019, p. 43) states, the “educational field, already a space of contestation, now explicitly incorporates disputes over market interests, involving businesspeople, politicians, and a network seeking to open the educational field to the market”.[6]

Within this framework, Escobar (2021), author of D7, argues that the Movimento pela Base acted as the main advisory group behind the final versions of the document, transitioning from supporter to manager and funder of the curricular policy. As such, the policy took on a character aligned with the reformers’ ideals, being antidemocratic and unjust regarding students’ fundamental social rights (Escobar, 2021; Rosa, 2019). In D10, Cóstola (2021) points out that the Movimento pela Base presented itself as a savior of education, with innovative and entrepreneurial initiatives. However, after analyzing the group’s identity, she found that most of its members had no involvement in education beyond economic interests, as they were neither teachers, administrators, nor researchers.

When examining the educational conceptions these groups sought to embed in the school curriculum, the author identifies an intent to establish “a technicist curriculum based on learning objectives that would be assessed through large-scale evaluation mechanisms” (Souza, 2020, p. 18).[7] According to Costa (2021, p. 144), in  D6, the BNCC promotes a hegemonic project in which “one can observe a growing visibility of discourses on efficiency, excellence, and quality to the detriment of discourses on cultures”.[8]

Moreover, Rocha (2016), author of D13, observes that the discourse of these corporate reformers is infused with social activism rhetoric, which manipulates public opinion through marketing centered on the ideal of educational quality. The blurring of boundaries between public and private is the focus of these “philanthropists,” “philanthrocapitalists,” or even “venture philanthropists” (Aguiar, 2018; Ball; Olmedo, 2013; Cortinaz, 2019), who use an altruistic discourse to:

reduce the idea of the public to two categories: consumers and employees. The study reveals the dangers of appropriating the discourse of participatory democracy by proposals that amount to little more than its reduction to categories of commodification (Rocha, 2016, p. 62).[9]

Destro (2019), author of T2, drawing on Avelar and Ball (2017), refers to these practices as a New Philanthropy, which establishes new modes of governance (relationships), generating new political arrangements with different forms of operation and responsibility. This reinforces the idea that “the private sector is the model to be emulated, and the public sector must be ‘entrepreneurialized’ in its image” (Ball, 2010, p. 486).[10] Furthermore, “the ‘new’ philanthropists want to see clear and measurable impacts and results from their ‘investments’ of time and money” (Ball; Olmedo, 2013, p. 33-34).[11] Unlike traditional philanthropy, which is based on altruism rather than returns on benevolence, the so-called “Philanthropy 3.0” is profit-driven charity (Ball; Olmedo, 2013).

The simultaneous (or overlapping) action of the private sector in the development of the BNCC is evident in this and various other studies, though the interests of these groups remain under-discussed. Initially, one can observe the incorporation of ideological elements that conflict with the educational ideals previously upheld. As Roriz (2020) notes, the curriculum conception promoted by corporate actors is limited to “a list of content-based and behavioral objectives and a concept of education restricted to school learning” (Roriz, 2020, p. 106).[12]

Roriz (2020), author of D2, questions the influence of international organizations and the rise of neoliberalism in basic education. According to Souza (2018), author of D9, the standards established by international organizations directly impact national education policies, regardless of whether the changes are consistent with local realities. After analyzing international curriculum policy documents and the BNCC, she concludes that such organizations operate to sustain capital and disseminate this model across various countries (Souza, 2018).

Given this context of influence surrounding the BNCC, the policy text production process also reveals favoritism, both in terms of participation and in defining the curricular model. Recent studies highlight significant shortcomings in the democratic development of the BNCC, with little to no priority given to the involvement of unions, researchers, and educators (Mattos, 2021), which underscores the policy’s bias and verticalization.

For Silva (2018), author of D4, the contradiction is evident between the “document and the principle of democracy, as it disregards pluralism of ideas and the foundations of democratic management, participation, and transparency, as established in Article 3 of the Law of Guidelines and Bases (LDB)” (Silva, 2018, p. 9).[13] In D11, author Takeuti (2021) echoes the critique that certain groups were prioritized in the consultation process, while others were excluded or silenced.

In this regard, Destro (2019), author of T2, offers key insights into the gaps in the BNCC’s development process. Drawing on the research of Stankevecz and Castilho (2018), which analyzed articles from the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, she identifies that, in this process, the dominant voices were those of private institutions and foundations, international experts supporting the document, and NGOs. Thus, in this dispute for influence and power:

we find the Ministry of Education (MEC) alongside corporate institutes and foundations celebrating the participation of the Brazilian population and framing the moment as democratic, while, on the other hand, organizations such as ANPED and ABdC question this so-called participation – one due to the lack of dialogue with schools, and the other due to the absence of the very discussions that were intended to be democratic, respectively (Destro, 2019, p. 110, grifo nosso).[14]

The purported dialogue ended with the public consultation that, according to MEC, received 12 million contributions; yet no clarification was provided as to whether or how these contributions were incorporated into the final text of the BNCC. Not even numerous statements of opposition or the creation of academic discussion forums succeeded in halting its advancement. As a result, it is clear that the intent was not to engage in dialogue, but rather to impose upon teachers, administrators, and students “a normative curricular centrality policy, which tends to systematize and control the pedagogical practice of teachers” (Destro, 2019, p. 9),[15] with serious consequences for schools and for the education of Brazilian children and youth (Mattos; Amestoy; Tolentino-Neto, 2021).

Thus, it becomes evident that private sector interests in shaping the national curriculum are deeply tied to the societal project of corporate reformers (Peroni, 2020). When curriculum is understood as a form of power, the adopted model speaks volumes about the formation of a generation (Silva, 2009). Accordingly, developing a mandatory curriculum based on skills and competencies contributes to:

an ideological-commercial perspective of education that seeks school success through the lens of total quality, measurable via standardized external assessments, to the detriment of socially grounded educational success that promotes the emancipation of individuals (Silva, 2018, p. 9).[16]

In this distortion of education’s emancipatory social role, the BNCC presents itself as a pragmatic, technocratic, and utilitarian curriculum, reducing human development to a list of essential skills for entry into the labor market (Silva, 2018). Gomes (2019), in T1, points out that the curricular reform aligns “with the interests of private financial capital and imposes a fast-tracked educational logic on secondary education, preparing labor to meet immediate and punctual market demands” (p. 8).[17]

To limit and regulate the schooling process to labor production represents one of the greatest advances of the neoliberal era and one of the most severe educational setbacks (Macedo, 2014). In D5, Rosa (2019, p. 8) identifies “a network of economic and political interests surrounding the BNCC [...] the discontinuities identified reveal a curricular proposal aligned with a capitalist societal project, where children are addressed as entrepreneurs of themselves”.[18]

Despite opposition and public rejection, the BNCC was approved in 2017 for Elementary Education and in 2018 for Secondary Education. Even in 2017, the policy’s implementation was already advancing, especially after the National Council on Education (Conselho Nacional de Educação – CNE) published Resolution CNE/CP No. 2 of December 22, 2017, which established and guided the implementation of the BNCC. In the Base Implementation Guide, network governance is portrayed as a mediator between the public and private sectors, aimed at aligning state and municipal curricula, assessments, and teacher training. To meet the demands generated by the BNCC, the Guide clearly recommends the establishment of public-private partnerships (PPPs) as a solution for building new policies aligned with the Base (Brazil, 2020).

Private actors, in turn, offered consultancy and materials to schools, which were racing against tight deadlines to understand the BNCC’s proposals and adjust their curricula. The same private agents involved in the document’s formulation began to profit from professional development sessions, support materials, and consulting services for education networks across the country. These facts reveal the rise of the corporate sector, not only in terms of profitability but also in embedding their market-driven ideals (Apple, 2005; Freitas, 2014; 2018; Takeuti, 2021).

According to Rocha (2019, p. 119), the effects of this dominance can be observed:

at the macro level – in new roles for the State, i.e., minimal in terms of providing social public policies and maximal in terms of regulation. And at the micro level – in new practices and organizational forms in schools, and in the subjectivities of the actors involved in local contexts.[19]

In a scenario where the State transitions from service provider to manager, its role combines “regulation, performance monitoring, contracting, and facilitation of new public service providers” (Ball, 2014, p. 73). The transfer of resources and power from public to private actors was not born out of necessity, but rather from a long-standing strategy to legitimize business interests and generate profit from education. So much so that even before the final version of the BNCC was approved, the Ministry of Education contracted Fundação Vanzolini, a private institution, for R$19 million to provide services related to BNCC implementation (Antunes, 2017; Rosa, 2019). The involvement of institutions financed by private groups is tied both to the corporate reform of education (Freitas, 2014) and to a conservative neoliberal modernization of education (Apple, 2003), which reconfigures the roles of public and private actors, steering governance toward new forms of management and accountability under the guise of solving educational problems (Takeuti, 2021).

In light of the above, it is clear that private interests have been legitimized in public policy, especially in the BNCC, which was used as a control mechanism, expropriating teachers’ autonomy and students’ true protagonism. Furthermore, the distortion of philanthropy by corporate reformers shows that their involvement in education does not serve a social good but rather serves the maintenance of capital. The philanthrocapitalists funded the BNCC and continue to profit from its implementation, though such profit goes beyond financial gain, it includes the ideological returns yielded by the technical and instrumental training they promote. The next section presents the paths taken by education after the BNCC, along with some evidence of the societal project designed by the corporate sector.

The rise of public–private relations after the BNCC: societal project and immediate profitability

The process of conceptualizing the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC), as discussed in the previous section, is not recent. However, it gained momentum within the private sector around 2013, assuming a strongly market-oriented discourse grounded in the discharacterization of the public sector and the overvaluation of the private sector (Gomes, 2019; Souza, 2020). Within this neoliberal logic, private institutions gained ground through salvationist discourses for public education, creating space for what Ball (2014, p. 120) calls “policy microspaces,” defined as “preeminent social configurations and events of speech and exchange where trust is built and commitments and deals are made.”[20]

Rocha (2019), in T4, states that the principle of this managerial model is based on the idea that “management packages, curriculum, teacher training, and technologies, based on the logic of total quality and efficiency, can solve educational problems” (p. 119).[21] From this perspective, Costa (2021, p. 103), in D6, points to the construction of “discourses that portray the public school as increasingly failing, where teachers and students are made responsible for the failure; in this way, space is opened up for the solutions proposed by the economic market”.[22]

The actions of valorizing private initiative and devaluing public education result in a shift in public opinion values – explained through the Overton Window theory in Amestoy and Tolentino-Neto (2020). According to the authors, such shifts are orchestrated by reformers and involve research institutes, lobbyists, the press, digital influencers, among others. In this neoliberal universe, according to Tolentino-Neto (2023, p. 35), the foundations are awarded merit and benefits, while the failures and burdens remain the responsibility of the State.

However, it is evident that:

the State remains largely responsible for educational access; nonetheless, the pedagogical content, teacher training, and materials used in the school environment are increasingly determined by corporate institutions that introduce a market logic, focusing on results to the detriment of the democratic process, under the pretense of contributing to the quality of public education (Cóstola, 2021, p. 269, emphasis added).[23]

New redefinitions of public and private reshape the relationship between the state and the market. The curricular reform, legitimized by the BNCC, amplifies new commercial relations and threatens collective rights in favor of competition and individual accountability (Gomes, 2019; Roriz, 2020). The aim is no longer civic education for the common good but rather to train students for the brutality of the free market (Gentili, 2015; Rocha, 2016).

The private sector seeks to reconfigure public schooling, transforming it into a mechanism for disseminating the dominant class’s agendas. This is evident in the subordination of schools to aspects such as:

large-scale assessments aimed at producing educational indicators based on the standards of international multilateral organizations, as well as decentralized actions through public–private partnerships in the development of teaching materials, curricula, and teacher training, in addition to school and system management through external consultancies (Roriz, 2020, p. 116).[24]

According to Silva (2018), author of D4, third-sector and private-sector actors facilitate “the opening of the State to public–private partnerships within the framework of globalized neoliberalism and changes in public management.” Czekalski (2019, p. 30), author of D12, argues that private enterprise sees the public sector as a “golden opportunity to boost profits, [...] actively influencing public policy decisions, since it is through the gaps in policy that their market envisions profitability”.[25] In this regard, the private sector operates at:

different levels in different countries, now occupying a range of roles and relationships within the State and particularly in public education, as sponsors and benefactors, as well as contractors, consultants, advisors, researchers, service providers, and so on; both by sponsoring innovations (through philanthropic action) and by selling policy solutions and services to the State, sometimes in interrelated ways (Ball, 2014, p. 181).[26]

In the process of implementing the BNCC, the intent of profit through public–private partnerships (PPPs) becomes evident. However, in terms of educational conceptions, private interests appear veiled, disguised in the seductive rhetoric of entrepreneurship and autonomy. Through the promotion of exemplary experiences, private actors connected to companies, foundations, government agencies, and international organizations disseminate what they call educational volunteerism and best practices (Peroni, 2015; Ravitch, 2011). In T3, Cortinaz (2019, p. 34) argues that the objective of such articulation is to “promote educational reforms aligned with the models of developed countries, which result in the privatization and commodification of Brazilian education as happened in those countries”,[27] since “partnerships interfere with the content of public education, in curriculum development, teacher training, school management, and student behavior” (Peroni; Caetano; Lima, 2018, p. 421).[28]

The globalization process, sustained by international organizations, promotes large-scale reforms in various countries and sectors. In Brazil, educational reform has become a prosperous market—perhaps “the last great frontier”—given its continental scale and regional influence. According to Silva (2018, p. 63), it is through this influence that “structures responsible for sustaining profits and the profitability of the prevailing capitalist system are built and strengthened, enabling the accumulation of wealth by the most powerful and influential nations and transnational corporations”.[29] As a result, education becomes subordinated to capitalist logic and manipulated to achieve the objectives of neoliberal training (Branco, 2017; Destro, 2019).

Private interest in education has at least two significant and concerning objectives:

in the short term, the market itself, since selling education is profitable, especially in a context in which international mechanisms are mobilized in large-scale projects such as the BNCC, driving the production of didactic materials for specific school stages and content aimed at preparation for standardized assessments, established at municipal, state, or national levels. And in the long term, the aim is workforce and consumer training (Silva, 2018, p. 145, emphasis added).[30]

Thus, both immediate profitability and the consolidation of a societal project (Peroni, 2020) are the focus of current educational policy reforms. In the BNCC implementation process, the short-term profit interest has become evident. Faced with the vast educational solutions market, business actors operate on various fronts, such as the production of didactic materials, consultancy services, and teacher training (Caetano, 2020). Tolentino-Neto (2023) adds large-scale assessments to this list. The BNCC has established a model that is now enforced through assessments, thereby defining “[...] which content will be covered by teachers in the classroom, in undergraduate teacher education programs at universities and colleges (BNC-Formação), in teaching materials purchased by governments for public schools (PNLD), among other elements” (Cóstola, 2021, p. 50).[31]

In light of the demands arising after the BNCC, more than isolated educational solutions, companies have been selling a system to public schools, composed of complete packages. This strategy does not only lead to curricular narrowing through the use of workbooks, “but also results in the acquisition of management services, given that there is monitoring and supervision of teaching activities, as well as the inclusion of evaluation processes in this system” (Czekalski, 2019, p. 29).[32]

In this regard, the author of D7, Escobar (2021, p. 71), states that this model favors the publishing market, in which “specialists offer miraculous techniques through various courses and trainings. The market accelerates the development of products that align with the official document governing education”.[33] Furthermore, as a support for teacher education, new policies derived from the BNCC have been developed, such as the National Common Base for Initial Teacher Education in Basic Education (Base Nacional Comum para a Formação Inicial de Professores da Educação Básica – BNC-Formação) and the National Common Base for Continuing Teacher Education in Basic Education (Base Nacional Comum para a Formação Continuada de Professores da Educação Básica – BNC-Formação Continuada) (Brazil, 2019; 2020). 

In D3, Prado (2020) argues that the proposals for initial teacher education meet the expectations set by the BNCC, focusing solely on the development of pre-established competencies and skills. These training frameworks show that the “precarization of teacher education and public education is a government project aimed at the suppression of public education and the expansion of private education” (Prado, 2020, p. 49).[34]

This issue becomes even more evident when considering that most teacher trainings come from the private sector, supporting Ball’s (2011) assertion that much of the “quality paraphernalia is borrowed from the private sector” (p. 27). This transfer, detached from the social reality, contributes “to the reproduction of social inequalities, specifically in teacher education, and reinforces the devaluation of teaching work” (Prado, 2020, p. 50).[35]

This is because commodification negotiates the very educational policy – education comes to function like commodities (Tolentino-Neto, 2023, p. 24) and is “bought and sold, it is a commodity and a profit opportunity; there is a growing global market of policy ideas” (Ball, 2014, p. 222). Ball and Youdell (2007, p. 10) highlight that such ideas flow through “advice, consultation, research, evaluation, and forms of influence [...] the private sector and NGOs are increasingly involved in both the development and implementation of policies”.[36]

Additionally, these standardized and replicable materials do not reflect the reality of the school context, leading to the “alienation of teaching work, which becomes merely reproductive of pre-made materials and no longer intellectual work that produces knowledge” (Cóstola, 2021, p. 271).[37] The alignment “with the reductive language of learning shaped by multilateral agencies causes this disconnection with ‘the school floor’ and with the concrete subjects who often lack basic working and studying conditions” (Jesus; Ribeiro, 2023, p. 5).[38]

In D8, Pereira (2021) addresses with concern the continuing education of teachers in the state of Amazonas after the BNCC, since most of the courses offered are linked to third-sector institutions, such as the Lemann Foundation and the Bradesco Foundation. The course content is more focused on “disseminating materials from these private institutions than serving as a space for the continuous professional development of teachers from the public education system in Amazonas” (p. 134).[39]

One observes the reduction of the concept of education, as a right for all, to a mere commodity available for consumption, which completely distorts its social role. The managerial vision of the reformers, based on the measurement of educational quality through external evaluations, contradicts an education oriented toward human emancipation. Reducing education to external assessment results “tends to produce socially unjust outcomes, as it focuses on performance improvement rather than addressing unequal teaching conditions” (Takeuti, 2021, p. 68).[40]

Moreover, this approach disregards numerous issues faced by schools, which often lack even the basic infrastructure to keep students in the classroom. Jesus and Ribeiro (2023, p. 5) emphasize that “considering basic sanitation or even public safety may have a greater impact on the desired ‘quality’ than standardizing curricula and measuring performance indices”.[41]

In Cóstola’s (2021) study, it becomes evident that, following the curricular reform, the private sector’s main strategies were teacher training and the incorporation of content into pedagogical projects. She concludes that the reform proposed by this sector “is not merely curricular, but political, as it affects the school’s social function and the right to education” (p. 269).

The second long-term objective of the private sector with this curricular reform concerns the envisioned societal project, which aims at the “uncritical training of labor for work. This is a policy based on a neotaylorist model, reducing the role of school education to a process of passive adaptation of students to market demands” (Silva, 2018, p. 178).[42] What is sought is an education based on a “market-oriented concept of quality, which dismantles the public system and converts education into a business organization embedded in the free market” (Cóstola, 2021, p. 269).

Thus, according to Escobar (2021), author of D7, “the BNCC reveals an intent of management, regulation, a mechanism of control over institutions and the identity of subjects” (Escobar, 2021, p. 20). The influence on the construction of subjects’ identities is one of the central objectives, since what is observed is a predatory education aimed at training and selecting students to serve as labor for the maintenance of capital and the interests of the dominant classes (Freitas et al., 2012; Freitas, 2018).

According to the author of D10, the BNCC seeks to establish an educational standard that:

Spreads individualism by promoting self-management, youth protagonism, and entrepreneurship, reducing the social function of education and schools to an economic/profit-driven purpose, to the detriment of meaningful teaching that supports the holistic development of individuals. In doing so, it produces a new subjectivity, forming a “new type of worker”, an “entrepreneurial” and “flexible” one, suited to the demands of twenty-first-century capital. (Cóstola, 2021, p. 45, emphasis added).[43]

The perspective of entrepreneurial education “is now a widespread global phenomenon, connected by governmental texts and policies to the international competitiveness of the knowledge economy” (Ball, 2010, p. 492).[44] In this regard, Gomes (2019), in T1, discusses the challenging directions of education driven toward the market, fostering “the insertion of private education systems into public networks throughout Brazil, confronting individual interests and collective rights” (p. 88).

When it comes to the effects of the BNCC on student education, it is important to draw attention to the model and content of these reforms. Corporate reformers present in this document their intentions to consolidate an educational project “using new educational technologies based on meritocracy and privatization, aiming to solidify a neotechnicist project” (Souza, 2020, p. 72). Thus, the curriculum ceases to play its role as a social and cultural artifact (Moreira; Silva, 2013) and becomes a control mechanism geared toward corporate productivity. D5, authored by Rosa (2019), highlights that, although the discourse claims that the BNCC serves both:

public and private networks and all Brazilian students, it is in public education that it will be implemented, controlled, assessed, and enforced. For those schools and students who do not succeed, responsibility is assigned for failure, for lack of resilience. For those who overcome the obstacles and achieve the goals, meritocracy, rewards, and recognition are granted (Rosa, 2019, p. 50, emphasis added).[45]

Escobar (2021), in D7, presents the impacts of the BNCC starting in early childhood education, recognizing that a single, prescriptive curriculum does not contribute to children’s development but rather to their formation as consumers:

not considering their specificities and differences. This benefits the consumer market through the production of material that facilitates teachers’ work. As if it were a recipe, just follow the steps and you’ll get the result (Escobar, 2021, p. 46, emphasis added).[46]

According to Souza (2020, p. 72), the private sector aims to “take the lead in the ideological control of schools and in access to basic knowledge for worker training, in disputes and on the Education agenda”.[47] In light of this, Rocha (2016, p. 46), author of D13, points to the dismantling of the educational system, due to its replacement by a “diversified set oriented toward the free-market, of companies [schools] responsible for delivering products [educated people], with minimal quality specifications [National Curriculum]”.[48]

The impact of education on individuals’ social lives is unique; therefore, this field has been the target of many disputes due to its role in:

strongly influencing the formation of new generations of people, workers, and business leaders, in both private and public institutions, including in the political leadership of the country. It is, therefore, both a reproducer of social inequalities and, paradoxically, a space of historical resistance to the established status quo (Gomes, 2019, 254).[49]

Even in the face of isolated and silenced resistance efforts, it is evident that the curriculum, as a shaper of identity (Silva, 2009), has been used to mold students according to the logics of efficiency and productivity (Ball, 2014). Costa (2021, p. 78), in D6, understands that these discourses are rooted in traditional curriculum theory, since “the authors of this theory see curriculum as a means to achieve technicist objectives, focused on efficiency and rationality”.

The proposal for standardization and minimum content nationwide highlights the view expressed in D4, that even if the BNCC:

claims to support holistic education, one observes the subordination of pedagogical foundations to the market-driven and reductionist logic of education, subordinated to the utilitarianism of the content proposed by the policy makers (Silva, 2018, p. 179).[50]

Ball (2001, p. 108) points out that, in this new environment, the student is increasingly “commodified,” and “survival in the educational market becomes the new basis of common purpose – pragmatism and self-interest, no longer ethics and professional judgment, become the basis for the new games”.[51]

In light of the above, one perceives a high level of monitoring in education after the BNCC, which results in the expropriation of teaching labor, given the multiple sources of control (curricula, trainings, teaching materials, assessments, among others). Although corporate reformers have taken hold of the educational context, it is crucial to emphasize the “need to strengthen the debate on autonomy in curricular decisions and democratic school management as a way to resist the culture of performativity[III] and managerialism” (Rocha, 2019, p. 8).[52]

Final Considerations

The analysis of the selected works reveals the relationships between the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) and market interests, highlighting the privatizing bias that corporate reformers embed within the discourse of educational quality. The selected studies are organized into two thematic blocks that supported the discussion in this article: the process of development and the implementation of the Base.

In both processes, the influence of the private sector and the third sector is explicit, and by analyzing these stages of policy consolidation, it becomes possible to identify the modus operandi of these social actors. These relationships become clearer when one realizes that market influences do not originate from isolated actors but rather from those who are the true architects of the policy.

Furthermore, the research draws attention to two significant goals pursued by the private sector through the BNCC: the profitability – widely discussed and recognized in light of the extensive commercialization of education through the expansion of the educational solutions market – and the societal project – still scarcely addressed and recognized, yet genuinely concerning, as it undermines the formation of students' identities by reducing them to human capital.

Acknowledgments

This study was funded with resources from CAPES (DS and PNPD Scholarships) and CNPq (Productivity Scholarship).

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TOLENTINO-NETO, Luiz Caldeira Brant de. O protagonismo estratégico das avaliações em larga escala na articulação de políticas públicas no Brasil. In: TOLENTINO-NETO, Luiz Caldeira Brant de; AMESTOY, Micheli Bordoli. Avaliações externas na educação básica: contextos, políticas e desafios. 1st ed. São Paulo: Editora Cortez, 2023. v. 1. pp. 23-40.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Notes

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[1] Original: “conteúdos mínimos para o ensino fundamental, de maneira a assegurar formação básica comum e respeito aos valores culturais e artísticos, nacionais e regionais” (Brasil, 1988, art. 210).

[2] Original: “os currículos da educação infantil, do ensino fundamental e do ensino médio devem ter base nacional comum, a ser complementada, em cada sistema de ensino e em cada estabelecimento escolar, por uma parte diversificada, exigida pelas características regionais e locais da sociedade, da cultura, da economia e dos educandos” (Brasil, 1996, art. 26).

[3] Original: “Plano Nacional de Educação, em colaboração com os Estados, o Distrito Federal e os Municípios” (Brasil, 1996, art. 9, I).

[4] Original: “grupo empresarial que há anos vem semeando o discurso de educação de qualidade e um grupo de intelectuais críticos que resiste às demandas do mercado e à colonização da educação” (Rosa, 2019, p. 26).

[5] Original: “foi o intitulado de ‘Movimento pela Base’ composto por várias empresas e grupos privados, sendo os principais: Fundação Lemann, Todos pela Educação e Instituto Ayrton Senna” (Souza, 2020, p. 18).

[6] Original: “campo educacional que já era de disputas, agora agrega disputas explícitas [...] de interesses mercadológicos, envolvendo empresários, políticos e uma rede com interesses na abertura do campo educacional para o mercado” (Rosa, 2019, p. 43).

[7] Original: “um currículo tecnicista baseado em objetivos de aprendizagem que serão avaliados por mecanismos de avaliações em larga escala” (Souza, 2020, p. 18).

[8] Original: “é possível perceber um aumento na visibilização dos discursos de eficiência, excelência e qualidade em detrimento dos discursos sobre as culturas” (Costa, 2021, p. 144).

[9] Original: “reduzir a ideia do público a duas categorias: a dos consumidores e a dos empregados. O estudo revela os perigos da apropriação do discurso da democracia participativa por propostas que não significam mais do que a sua redução a categorias de mercantilização” (Rocha, 2016, p. 62).

[10] Original: “o setor privado é o modelo a ser emulado e o setor público deve ser “empreendedorizado” à sua imagem” (Ball, 2010, p. 486).

[11] Original: “os ‘novos’ filantropos querem ver impactos claros e mensuráveis e resultados de seus ‘investimentos’ de tempo e dinheiro” (Ball; Olmedo, 2013, p. 33-34).

[12] Original: “lista de objetivos conteudistas e comportamentais e o conceito de educação restrito à aprendizagem escolar” (Roriz, 2020, p. 106).

[13] Original: “documento e o princípio da democracia, ao desconsiderar o pluralismo de ideias e os fundamentos da gestão democrática, participação e transparência, amparadas pelo artigo 3º da Lei de Diretrizes e Bases (LDB)” (Silva, 2018, p. 9).

[14] Original: “tem-se o MEC juntamente com institutos e fundações empresariais que celebram a participação da população brasileira, entendendo esse momento como democrático e, de outro lado, a ANPED e a ABdC, por exemplo, que questionam essa participação, tanto pela falta de diálogo com as escolas quanto pela ausência das discussões que se pretendeu democrática, respectivamente” (Destro, 2019, p. 110, grifo nosso).

[15] Original: “uma política de centralidade curricular normativa, que tende a sistematizar e controlar o fazer pedagógico do professor” (Destro, 2019, p. 9).

[16] Original: “ideológica mercantil de educação que busca o sucesso escolar na perspectiva da qualidade total, passível de ser mensurado quantitativamente através de avaliações externas, em detrimento do sucesso educativo de qualidade social e propulsora da emancipação dos sujeitos” (Silva, 2018, p. 9).

[17] Original: “aos interesses do capital financeiro privado e impõem ao ensino médio uma lógica formativa aligeirada, direcionando a preparação de mão de obra para atender as demandas momentâneas e pontuais do mercado de trabalho” (Gomes, 2019, p. 8).

[18] Original: “uma rede de interesses econômicos e políticos em torno da BNCC [...] as descontinuidades apontadas mostram uma proposta curricular alinhada ao projeto de sociedade capitalista, com a subjetividade enunciada para a criança como empreendedora de si” (Rosa, 2019, p. 8).

[19] Original: “no âmbito macro – novos papéis do Estado, isto é, mínimo sob a perspectiva de oferta de políticas públicas sociais e máximo no sentido da regulação. E no âmbito micro, surgem novas formas no plano das práticas e da organização do trabalho das escolas e nas subjetividades dos atores envolvidos em contextos locais” (Rocha, 2019, p. 119).

[20] Original: “configurações sociais preeminentes e eventos de falas e de trocas onde a confiança é construída, e os compromissos e os negócios são feitos” (Ball, 2014, p.120).

[21] Original: “pacotes de gestão, currículo, formação de professores e tecnologias, baseadas na lógica da qualidade total e da eficiência, podem solucionar problemas educacionais” (Rocha, 2019, p. 119).

[22] Original: “discourses that portray the public school as increasingly failing, where teachers and students are made responsible for the failure; in this way, space is opened up for the solutions proposed by the economic market” (Costa, 2021, p. 103).

[23] Original: “o Estado continua responsável, em grande maioria, pelo acesso educacional, entretanto, o conteúdo pedagógico, a formação dos professores, os materiais usados no ambiente escolar, estes estão cada vez mais determinados por instituições empresariais, que introduzem a lógica mercantil, focando nos resultados em detrimento do processo democrático, com a desculpa de estarem contribuindo para a qualidade da educação pública” (Cóstola, 2021, p. 269, grifo nosso).

[24] Original: “as avaliações em larga escala em busca de indicadores educacionais balizados pelos organismos multilaterais internacionais, bem como de ações descentralizadas em parcerias público-privadas na elaboração de material didático, de currículos e de formação de professores, além da gestão de sistemas e escolas através de consultorias externas” (Roriz, 2020, p. 116).

[25] Original: “oportunidade de ouro para aquecer seus lucros. [...] passando a influenciar ativamente as decisões das políticas públicas, uma vez que é por meio das brechas nas políticas que seu mercado prevê lucratividade” (Czekalski, 2019, p. 30).

[26] Original: “diferentes graus, em diferentes países, o setor privado ocupa agora uma gama de funções e de relações dentro do Estado e na educação pública em particular, como patrocinadores e benfeitores, assim como trabalham como contratantes, consultores, conselheiros, pesquisadores, fornecedores de serviços e assim por diante; tanto patrocinando inovações (por ação filantrópica) quanto vendendo soluções e serviços de políticas para o Estado, por vezes de formas relacionadas” (Ball, 2014, p. 181).

[27] Original: “promover reformas educacionais alinhadas com os modelos dos países desenvolvidos e que resultam na privatização e na mercadificação da educação brasileira assim como ocorreu nesses países” (Cortinaz, 2019, p. 34).

[28] Orginal: “parcerias interferem no conteúdo da educação pública, na elaboração do currículo, na formação dos professores, na gestão escolar e no comportamento dos alunos” (Peroni; Caetano; Lima, 2018, p. 421).

[29] Original: “estruturas responsáveis por manter os lucros e a rentabilidade do sistema capitalista vigente, engendrando, junto às grandes empresas transnacionais e corporações, o acúmulo de riqueza das nações mais influentes e poderosas do globo” (Silva, 2018, p. 63).

[30] Original: “em curto prazo, o próprio mercado, pois vender educação é lucrativo, ainda mais neste contexto em que mecanismos internacionais se articulam em grandes projetos, como da BNCC, diante da produção de materiais didáticos direcionado a determinadas etapas da escolarização, bem como a conteúdos específicos direcionados à preparação para os próprios testes padronizados, em escala municipal, estadual ou nacionalmente estabelecidos. E a finalidade em longo prazo centra-se na formação de mão de obra e de consumidores” (Silva, 2018, p. 145, grifo nosso).

[31] Original: “[...] quais conteúdos serão abordados pelos professores em sala, pelos cursos de licenciatura nas universidades e faculdades (BNC-Formação), pelos materiais didáticos comprados pelos governos para as instituições públicas escolares (PNLD); entre outros fatores” (Cóstola, 2021, p. 50).

[32] Original: “mas acarreta também na obtenção de serviços de gestão, visto que há acompanhamento e supervisão das atividades docentes, assim como estão incluídos neste sistema, processos de avaliação” (Czekalski, 2019, p. 29).

[33] Original: “especialistas oferecem técnicas milagrosas com cursos e formações diversas. O mercado agiliza produtos que se alinhem ao documento oficial que rege a educação” (Escobar, 2021, p. 71).

[34] Original: “precarização da formação de professores e do ensino público é um projeto de governo para a supressão da educação pública e para a expansão do ensino privado” (Prado, 2020, p. 49).

[35] Original: “para a reprodução das desigualdades sociais, especificamente para a formação de professores e fortalece a desvalorização do trabalho docente” (Prado, 2020, p. 50).

[36] Original: “aconselhamento, consulta, investigação, avaliações e formas de influência [...] o setor privado e as ONGs estão cada vez mais envolvidas tanto no desenvolvimento quanto na implementação de políticas” (Ball; Youdell, 2007, p.10).

[37] Original: “alienação do trabalho docente, que passa a ser apenas um reprodutor dos materiais já prontos e não mais um intelectual que produz conhecimento” (Cóstola, 2021, p. 271).

[38] Original: “à linguagem redutora da aprendizagem nos moldes de agências multilaterais provoca essa desconexão com “o chão da escola” e com os sujeitos concretos que demandam muitas vezes de condições básicas de trabalho e de estudo” (Jesus; Ribeiro, 2023, p. 5).

[39] Original: “divulgação de materiais dessas instituições privadas, do que como espaço de formação contínua dos docentes da rede pública de ensino do Amazonas” (Pereira, 2021, p. 134).

[40] Original: “tende a produzir resultados socialmente injustos, pois focam na melhoria do desempenho, e não no trato das condições desiguais do ensino” (Takeuti, 2021, p. 68).

[41] Original: “pensar em saneamento básico ou mesmo segurança pública pode ser bem mais impactante na ‘qualidade’ almejada do que padronizar currículos e medir os índices de desempenho” (Jesus; Ribeiro, 2023, p. 15).

[42] Original: “formação acrítica de mão de obra para o trabalho. Trata-se de uma política de modelo neotaylorista, reduzindo o papel da educação escolar a um processo de adaptação passiva do aluno às demandas do mercado” (Silva, 2018, p. 178).

[43] Original: “Dissemina o individualismo ao valorizar o gerenciamento de si mesmo, o protagonismo juvenil e o empreendedorismo, reduzindo a função social da educação e da escola ao sentido econômico/lucrativo, em detrimento de um ensino significativo ao desenvolvimento integral dos sujeitos. Esta, ao produzir uma nova subjetividade, formará um “novo tipo de trabalhador”, “empreendedor” e “flexível” adequado às demandas do capital do século XXI” (Cóstola, 2021, p. 45, grifo nosso).

[44] Original: “é hoje um fenômeno global generalizado, conectado pelos textos e políticas governamentais à competitividade internacional da economia do conhecimento” (Ball, 2010, p. 492).

[45] Original: “rede pública e privada e para todos os estudantes brasileiros, é na educação pública que ela será implantada, controlada, avaliada e cobrada. Para aquelas escolas e estudantes que não obtiverem sucesso, cabe a responsabilização pelo fracasso, pela falta de resiliência. Para aqueles que vencerem os obstáculos e alcançarem os objetivos, a meritocracia, os prêmios e o reconhecimento” (Rosa, 2019, p. 50, grifo nosso).

[46] Original: “não levando em consideração as especificidades e as diferenças existentes entre elas. Isso favorece o mercado consumidor, para a produção de material que facilite a vida dos docentes. Como se fosse uma receita de bolo, é só seguir as etapas que terá o resultado” (Escobar, 2021, p. 46, grifo nosso).

[47] Original: “tomar a frente no controle ideológico das escolas e no acesso ao conhecimento básico para a formação do trabalhador, disputas e agenda da Educação” (Souza, 2020, p. 72).

[48] Original: “conjunto diversificado orientado para o mercado de livre flutuação, de empresas [escolas], encarregadas pela entrega de produtos [pessoas educadas], com uma mínima especificação de qualidade [Currículo Nacional]” (Rocha, 2016, p. 46).

[49] Original: “forte influência na formação de novas gerações de pessoas, trabalhadores e dirigentes de empresas, em instituições privadas e públicas, inclusive na condução política do País. É, por isso, reprodutora de desigualdades sociais, mas, contraditoriamente, lugar de resistência histórica ao status quo instituído” (Gomes, 2019, 254).

[50] Original: “se comprometa com a formação integral, percebe-se a subordinação dos fundamentos pedagógicos à lógica mercantil e reducionista da educação, subordinada ao utilitarismo dos conteúdos propostos pelos formuladores da política” (Silva, 2018, p. 179).

[51] Original: “sobrevivência no mercado educativo torna-se a nova base de propósito comum - pragmatismo e autointeresse, e não mais ética e julgamento profissional, passam a ser as bases para os novos jogos” (Ball, 2001, p. 108).

[52] Original: “necessidade de fortalecer o debate sobre a autonomia nas decisões curriculares e referente à gestão democrática da escola como forma de resistir à cultura da perfomatividade e do gerencialismo” (Rocha, 2019, p. 8).

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[I] The Steering Committee was established by the Minister of Education, Mendonça Filho, recently appointed by Michel Temer, who assumed the presidency after the coup.

[II] Such as the Brazilian Association of Curriculum (Associação Brasileira de Currículo – ABdC), the Brazilian Association for Research in Science Education (Associação Brasileira de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências – ABRAPEC), the National Association for the Training of Education Professionals (Associação Nacional pela Formação dos Profissionais da Educação – ANFOPE), among others (Mattos, 2021, p. 77).

[III] Performativity functions as a technique for disseminating market values, relationships, and subjectivities within the arenas of school practice, which ends up reshaping the meaning and significance of education and the teaching profession (Ball, 2001).