Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Ceará

The Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology of Ceará (IFCE) is a Federal Institute of higher, basic, and professional education, pluricurricular and multicampus, operating in Ceará, Brazil. Specialized in offering professional and technological education in the different teaching modalities, IFCE is based on the conjugation of technical and technological knowledge with pedagogical practice and operates in all regions of the state through its 32 campuses, serving more than 33,000 students in a total installed area of over 5.9 million m2.

IFCE's General Index of Courses (IGC) in 2017 reached 3, and the Institutional Concept in 2018 was 5. Recent evaluations by the Ministry of Education (MEC) point to an elevation in the indicators of the Higher Education Evaluation National System (Sinaes), such as course evaluations, institutional evaluations, and the National Student Performance Exam (Enade). Recent evaluations have resulted in 4 and 5 grades in courses and a 5 grade (the maximum grade) for the Sobral Campus, as a campus of excellence for IFCE. In 2009, the institute was listed in the National High School Exam (ENEM) as the best in Ceará, at position 148 in Brazil. IFCE is the first public institution to send a participant to the world stage of the International Young Physicists' Tournament in 2021 in Georgia.

The institution is also one of those that is part of the Brazilian Company for Industrial Research and Innovation (EMBRAPII), with an innovation hub that has already applied more than R$22 million in research investments in 50 contracts and has more than 340 students and about 70 researchers participating in these projects.

The IFCE is the successor of the legacy that trained students who helped transform society in many aspects, highlighting some famous ones like physicist Cláudio Lenz Cesar, singer Falcão, journalist Flávio Paiva, writer Lira Neto, actor Jesuíta Barbosa, and politician and former senator Inácio Arruda.

History

From "School of Apprentices" to "Federal Center"

In 1909, President Nilo Peçanha authorized the creation of the Schools of Apprentice Artisans (Escolas de Aprendizes Artífices – EAA), having initiated its activities in a building where the School of Apprentice-Mariners of Ceará (EAMCE) was inaugurated on May 25, 1910, with the presence of governor Nogueira Acioly, in Iracema Beach.

At the inauguration only the typography workshop functioned. The following year, in 1911, the shoemaking and tailoring workshops began to function and finally the carpentry and woodworking, metalworking, and mechanics workshops in 1912. The School of Artisans participated in 1911 in the Turin International held in Turin, Italy and obtained gold and silver medals with several artifacts carried by the students, as well as honorable mention.

The government of Ceará made a change with the EAA, transferring the school in 1914 to a building next to the José de Alencar Theater. During the initial years the operation was precarious, so much so that the workshops weren't working with engines, and the installations were functioning all with manual machines. Only in 1915 there was the inauguration of engines and other electric machines.

At this time the School of Apprentices began publishing the Revista Pedagógica (Pedagogical Magazine) in 1917, in which teaching topics that involved the institution's activities were presented and discussed. The list of the first graduates of the Ceará School of Apprentice Artisans is very short, and in 1922 only 13 students had finished the courses in a period of 12 years of activities of the school, between 1910 and 1921. Such a situation stemmed from the difficulty of the students, most of whom were poor and needed to work to survive. In 1931 the Schools of Mariners were extinguished, and so in Ceará, the School of Artisans came to occupy the premises, in the Jacarecanga neighborhood, between 1932 and 1939.

The transformation into an "Industrial Lyceum" took place during Carlos Câmara's administration, in 1937. At that time, Câmara articulated with the government of Ceará the feasibility of the institution's own headquarters, through the donation of the former Campo do Prado Stadium in Fortaleza. This land donation took place through Decree No. 548 of May 4, 1939. Due to Brazil's entry into World War II, the site was used as shelter and preparation for the Rubber soldiers of the Special Service of Workers' Mobilization for the Amazon (SEMTA), until 1945. In 1939 Waldyr Diogo de Siqueira was appointed director, and the following year, 1940, the high school was transferred to a building of the Ceará Transportation Network in the Centro neighborhood in Fortaleza.

The MEC changed the name from "Lyceum" to "School" in 1942. Siqueira was the director who accompanied the construction of the new headquarters, but it was Jorge Raupp who inaugurated, in 1952, the project by architect Emílio Hinko. The institution had, at the time, a structure to "attend 800 students, counting with classrooms, workshops, dormitories, gymnasium, tennis court and swimming pool".

Raupp was sworn in as director in 1951 and already in that year he got a training in the area of industrial education at a United States cooperation program in New York. Technical education underwent changes in 1959, already with a minimum age of 14 years and transforming the schools into autarchies. In 1961 with the first Law of Directives and Bases of National Education (LDB), professional education was established and it was at this time that the first technical courses integrated to high school emerged, which trained the road and building technicians in 1962.

In the late 1960s the military government made an agreement with the World Bank that modernized the Federal Technical Schools (ETF), with the one in Ceará receiving several pieces of machinery imported from countries such as Germany, Switzerland, France, the United States and Czechoslovakia.

The transition from "Industrial School" to "Technical School" was already foreseen in the legislation by means of Decree-Law No. 4,127 of 1942. This moment happened in 1968 by means of an ordinance of the MEC. The manager who spent more time under this denomination was Professor César Araripe, for 21 years. In 1973 he visited the United States with other federal managers through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) program, for training on high school education in that country, at the University of California, San Diego.

In the 1980s the school entered the computer age with the offer of a technical course in Industrial Informatics in 1987. At that time Professor Mauro, who was the last principal of that period, was the course coordinator and was responsible for popularizing local networks for teaching purposes, and was featured in local and national fairs. At that time, innovation was also part of the school's academic environment with its students and teachers involved in the elaboration of prototypes for patents, such as the needle that disables reuse to prevent AIDS transmission, in 1991.

With the arrival of Fernando Henrique Cardoso to the presidency of Brazil, the federal technical education still had a very high recognition and quality, so much so that critics of the country's educational problems baptized the situation as "Belindia" (a fictitious conjunction of Belgium and India), citing in 1995 the case of Ceará offering only 200 vacancies for a competition of 3,000 students. The interiorization began through the Program for Expansion and Improvement of Technical Education (PROTEC), launched in Brasília in the year 1986 and made effective with the inauguration in 1995 of the Decentralized Teaching Units (UnED) of Juazeiro do Norte and Cedro.

With the change to Federal Center for Technological Education (CEFET), the offer of higher education courses began in 1999 with technological undergraduation courses. At the same time the Technological Research and Qualification Center (CPQT) was created, a non-profit institution to manage resources for postgraduate lato sensu courses offered at that time. In 2003 LG Electronics began a partnership with CEFET, donating computers and constructing buildings and laboratories. Also, in 2006 a new classroom block was inaugurated.

It was in the change to CEFET that there was the Expansion Plan Phase II of the technological education network in the country, carried out by the Federal Government in 2007, where six pole cities in Ceará were chosen, out of 150 cities in all of Brazil, for the expansion of CEFETs. The first city to have a UnED was Maracanaú in 2007. The government of Ceará reinforced the structure with the transfer, in 2008, of the units of the Ceará Technological Education Center Institute (CENTEC) in Sobral and Limoeiro do Norte. Still in 2008, the Quixadá UnED started its activities.

Transformations in agricultural education

Federal agricultural education in Ceará was not foreseen in Decree No. 22,470 of 1947, which created the establishment network, but provided that it could be created by agreement with the federative entities. An agreement only emerged in 1954, when Federal Deputy Alencar Araripe and Minister of Agriculture João Cleofas signed an agreement for the installation of rural education in Crato. Then, the first course (tractor driving) of the Crato Agricultural School was created in the following year. Almost ten years later, in February 1964, its name changed to Agricultural School.

In 1967, the military government made a change in the management of agricultural education, transferring it from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA) to the MEC. The institution was renamed, in 1979, Agrotechnical Federal School of Crato.

At that time the Organic Law of Agricultural Education, Decree-Law No. 9,613 of 1946, established an education that included women, even if in separate spaces, and also encouraged an extensive pedagogical practice, seeking the relationship of the institution with the neighborhoods. In 1983 another decree made it possible for the activities developed by the students to be marketed for the benefit of these students through school cooperatives.

The Iguatu campus of the IFCE was created in 1955, along with the Rural Home Economics extension course, still linked to the MAPA. The course sought to enable literate people to improve the standard of living at home, through embroidery, painting, cooking, sewing, crochet, knitting, agricultural practices, notions of hygiene, nursing, etc. In 1962, the MAPA created the Elza Barreto Rural Home Economics College. Its function was to train teachers for the teaching of this extension course. The technical students that graduated from the course were integrated to the development process of the region, aiming at the socioeconomic growth of the community through the introduction of techniques and knowledge in the areas, as well as combining teaching and agricultural production. Over time, the school gained recognition and, on September 4, 1979, changed its name to Federal Agrotechnical School of Iguatu.

Between "Technological University" and "Federal Institute"

In the beginning of Lula's government, there was a very high expectation in the possibility of improving professional education, notably revealed during CEFETs 2004 pedagogical meeting that made an extensive debate about the transformation to "Technological University". In the following year, with the creation of the Federal Technological University of Paraná (UTFPR), the plans seemed to have a possibility of being realized and the institution elaborated a 2005–2009 Institutional Development Plan that aimed at this goal, but that was revised with the MEC's plan through its idea to expand and restructure the technological education of the federal network with a unified brand, establishing a more solid and comprehensive network.