Strengths and weaknesses of the Environmental Management course at the University of Brasília

Abstract

By utilizing the funds from the Federal University Restructuring and Expansion Plans (REUNI), the University of Brasília (UnB) increased and democratized the number of vacancies, prioritizing the creation of night courses in the poor areas of Brasilia. In this context, the Environmental Management course (GAM) was created at the Faculdade UnB de Planaltina (FUP) in 2008. In its first evaluation by the Ministry of Education (MEC), UnB GAM course achieved grade 4, not far from the maximum mark, which is 5. Research results, however, revealed a high dropout rate and low employability of degree holders, raising doubts about its quality as well as the effectiveness of MEC evaluation. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of the UnB GAM course by identifying its strengths and weaknesses through the perception of its former students. To do so, 43 questionnaires were reviewed through cluster analysis. The study revealed that the strengths were associated with the high quality of professors, workers and overall infrastructure of UnB. Weaknesses are found in difficulties inherent to the fact that the course is new and has not yet been recognized by an official professional board. Questions related to the curricular structure of the course, the quality of the laboratories and the library as well as incorporating students in projects of supervised undergraduate research, extension and internships in the respective training area were seen as showing intermediate-level quality.