Introduction

Throughout the 1990s, the principles that governed teacher education policy and programs in Brazil were marked by the demands of capital that set goals for the educational policy to be established with a view to the formation of individuals adaptable to the social model that was consolidated. In order to materialize the consensus, official documents, laws, directives and decrees were drawn up based on the recommendations of international multilateral organizations such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), which carried out diagnoses, analyzes and proposals for the social policies of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in order to direct these policies, the educational ones amongst them. The centrality of education was affirmed by these international organizations in an imperative way for the economic development of the countries, and in this context, the teacher education assumed strategic importance for the effective implementation of the education reform that was outlined.

The recommendations of the events, forums and documents developed and promoted by these multilateral bodies - such as the 1990 World Conference on Education for All, and its resulting World Declaration on Education for All; the Delors Report drawn up between 1993 and 1996; and the document Priorities and Strategies for Education, in 1995 - were contextualized and reinterpreted in events and documents elaborated in Brazil - such as the Capital-Labor Forum in 1992 and its resulting Education Charter; the document Critical Issues of Brazilian Education, in 1995; and the international event promoted by UNESCO and organized by the Carlos Chagas Foundation (FCC) and the Center for Research on Higher Education (NUPES) - all in line with the legitimation of the ongoing consensus on the role of the State in social policies and reforms to be implemented in accordance with the redefinition of this role.

The proposals of these events and documents, which were extremely similar to those of multilateral organizations, were disseminated and directly influenced some of the preliminary drafts of the Laws and Guidelines of National Education, which after eight years of proceedings in the National Congress was approved in 1996 (^{SHIROMA et al., 2007}). Like the events, books and research on the theme also sought to disseminate the new paradigm on the redefinition of the role of the State in the elaboration of educational policies and on the paths that education should take in our country, pointing out the “challenges in education for the new millennium “.

Among the challenges pointed out, some emergency strategies were included in order to meet the lack of teachers to perform in basic education, which implied also thinking about emergency strategies for education and insertion of these professionals at this level of education. In view of this deficiency and in continuity with the educational reform that had been consolidated since the 1990s, a special commission instituted by the MEC/CNE prepared in 2007 a report entitled Scarcity of Teachers in Secondary Education: Structural and Emergency Proposals which brought a compilation of data published by the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Inep/MEC), the National Confederation of Education Workers (CNTE) and the OECD. The deficit presented by the report that year was 479,906 teachers for the final grades of Elementary School and 246,085 teachers for High School. For this last level, the greatest deficiency was located in the disciplines of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. It would be necessary, therefore, to cover about 746 thousand teaching jobs in the country. However, the same document presents alarming data on teacher education, especially in these areas, showing the great evasion in these courses and the low number of teachers graduated with these degrees (BRASIL, 2007).

Based on this framework, the report presents some “emergency solutions” for meeting the need for teachers for basic education, such as the delay of the retirement of high school teachers; the incentive for retired teachers to return to teaching in the most deficient disciplines; the creation of scholarships for students graduating from public schools to study in the private network, in the manner of the University for All Program (Prouni); the hiring of liberal professionals (engineers, biologists, agronomists, etc.) as teachers of basic education; the emergency use of undergraduate students as teachers through scholarships for teaching; the contracting of foreign teachers in specific disciplines and the complementary use of the “Teleclass” for the teaching of the disciplines of secondary education (^{BRASIL, 2007}). With that were elaborated compensatory goals, of minimalist and immediatist character and that does not indicate, in fact, a concern with the formation or the valorization of the profession and career professors in the country.

The recommendations of the OECD and other international entities were adopted and are followed to the present day in Brazil. During this period, some federal programs were created with the objective of meeting the objectives signaled by these entities to solve the problem of teacher education: to train in service to enable lay teachers or without the required minimum education, especially through short courses and programs duration; to create strategies to meet the demand for teaching coverage in the country; to develop/maintain programs that facilitate access to degrees (including those from other careers); to encourage initiatives to reform the curriculum of undergraduate degrees; to develop innovative strategies for the best performance of basic education students in national and international assessments; and to develop programs to keep students in undergraduate degrees.

Among the programs that aim to contribute to teacher education and the permanence of students in undergraduate courses is the Institutional Program of Initiation to Teaching Scholarship (PIBID). This Program was regulated by Decree no 7219 of June 24, 2010, with the purpose of encouraging the initiation of teaching, contributing to the improvement of the education of teachers at the higher level and to the improvement of the quality of basic education (BRAZIL, 2010). In addition to the encouragement of teacher education at the higher level for basic education, it aims, among other aspects, to be an integrating element between higher education and basic education; to include the graduates in the daily life of schools of the public education network, providing them with opportunities to “create and participate in methodological, technological and teaching experiences of an innovative and interdisciplinary nature that seek to overcome problems identified in the teaching-learning process”, “to encourage public schools of basic education, mobilizing their teachers as co-formers of future teachers and making them protagonists in the processes of initial formation for the teaching profession” and contribute to the better articulation between theory and practice, “raising the quality of academic actions in the teaching courses” (BRASIL, 2010, article 3, items IV, V and VI).

Considering that PIBID is within a broader context of educational reform and state strategies to meet the needs of teacher education, an analysis should be made of the influence of this program on the training and career choices of the graduates participating in it, in order to understand if its objectives related to the valorization and the encouragement of the teaching profession are being met.

PIBID grants scholarships for students who are regularly enrolled in undergraduate courses and for coordinators and supervisors responsible for the development of the project, with aid for related expenses. The institutional coordinator is the professor of the Higher Education Institution (IES) responsible before CAPES for the monitoring, organization, and execution of the initiation activities for teaching provided for in the Institution’s project; the coordinator of area of ​​management of educational processes is the teacher who assists in the management of the project in the IES; and the area coordinator is the licentiate professor who must respond by coordinating the area subproject before the institutional coordination of the IES, as well as elaborating, developing and monitoring the activities foreseen in the subproject. The supervising teacher is a public school teacher who is integrated into the work project and receives the undergraduates in order to accompany them and supervise them in their activities at the school. Ordinance No. 96/2013 also allows that, at the discretion of the IES, volunteer teachers and students be admitted to the project, provided that they meet the same requirements as the fellows and fulfill the duties of the Program.

According to ^{Gatti et al. (2011}), the PIBID has enjoyed great support from institutions since its inception. In 2007, the institutional projects of 23 federal higher education institutions were approved, and in 2009, the projects of 89 federal and state institutions were selected to receive scholarships and grants. In 2010, 31 other community and municipal IESs joined the Program, and in 2011, 104 institutions had their projects qualified in PIBID. According to data provided by the CAPES website¹, PIBID currently has 284 Higher Education Institutions throughout the country that develops 313 projects for teaching² in more than 5,000 public schools of basic education. With the call for proposals 61/2013, the number of scholarships granted reached about 90,000 among undergraduates, teachers of basic education and higher education, which represents a growth of more than 80% compared to 2012.

In order to expand and contribute to the research that has been carried out in recent years on the social and educational validity of this Program, we aim to present an analysis of the influences of PIBID, a Program that integrates the National Policy for the Education of Basic Education Teachers, in professional choices of undergraduate students participating in this initiative. This is a qualitative research that has in the semi-structured interview the main instrument of data construction and analysis. The interviews analyzed were carried out in the year 2013 with two coordinators of the area of ​​management of educational processes, four area coordinators, four professors and forty-eight students of four PIBID subprojects of a federal university located in the southern region of Brazil³. The subprojects are linked to four different courses: Teaching Degree in Physics, Teaching Degree in Letters - Portuguese/English⁴, Teaching Degree in Mathematics and Teaching Degree in Chemistry, designated randomly in this work by the letters A, B, C, and D.

For the discussion of the data, some extracts from the interviews with the participants were used, which were presented in this article in italics so that it was possible to highlight them and to differentiate them from a bibliographic citation. In order to maintain the confidentiality of the data, the names of the participants and of persons cited by them were hidden and, when necessary, replaced by fictitious names throughout the work. Likewise, the names of the specific courses/subjects were replaced in the excerpts by the term specific content, followed by the letter that indicates the subproject.

In order to differentiate the reports of the different subjects that participated in the study, some acronyms were also used: Area Coordinator of Educational Processes (CG), Area Coordinator (CA), Supervisors (S), Contributors (C) and Initiation to Teaching Scholarships (B). Thus, at the end of each report, the acronym that corresponds to the analyzed subproject is shown in parentheses, followed by the acronym corresponding to the subject narrator. Possible expressions were presented in brackets in excerpts in order to clarify the subject matter, often implicit in the narrative of the participant or referred to in a previous paragraph, which, at the time of selection of excerpts, was eventually excluded.

The PIBID, the professional choices, and the teaching working conditions

Over the last few years, the literature on teacher education has shown that the choice for teaching is also influenced by personal, academic and professional experiences lived before and after the initial teacher education. This is one of the ideas defended by ^{Tardif (2012}), which affirms that the choice for the teaching profession can be influenced also by the pre-professional experiences, including those that mark the school socialization as a student. According to the author, even before they teach, future teachers spend many years in the classroom and in schools, which allows them to acquire certain beliefs and ideas about the professional teaching practice, as well as about what it means to be a student. This idea is also discussed by ^{Marcelo Garcia (2010)}, according to whom teaching is the only profession in which future professionals are exposed to a longer period of prior socialization. From this stage of observation which they experience as students, and their previous school history, teachers develop mental patterns, beliefs, and representations about teaching even before they begin to officially teach. For these authors, the strength of this knowledge inherited by previous school experience is very strong and can persist through time, even during and after college.

We can observe the presence of these influences previous to the formal preparation for teaching in the testimonies of some of the scholarship students interviewed:

{…} I did a course, I finished, I went to work in a plant, in the laboratory, I saw that it was not that same, industry, laboratory, that I really enjoyed learning, I always really enjoyed making others learn, then I started the teaching degree. (BB, our emphasis).

{…} Well, when I heard about the PIBID project, from this program, I became interested because I have had this desire to teach since school. (BB)

{…} I have always wanted to be a teacher. Of {specific content C}, specifically of {specific content C}. (CB, our emphasis)

{…} I have already entered the course decided to work on {specific content A} and teach {specific content A}. I have always wanted to teach {specific content A}, since high school. (AB, our emphasis)

From these reports, we can observe that some students already enter the university with the intention to follow the teaching career. Such intention is formed throughout their schooling process, which allows them to elaborate some representations and beliefs about being a teacher and about the act of teaching. Different works that deal with teachers’ school and pre-professional narratives show that the socialization prior to the formation and the exercise of the profession exerts a considerable influence on the professional choices and the constitution of the teaching identity. Throughout the initial education course, the inclination for teaching may or may not be strengthened in students, given the specific knowledge they acquire about the area of ​​knowledge and the profession and its relation to a wider social practice. It is a subjective process of teaching that articulates and gains form and meaning with the social and objective context of teacher education and work.

This is one of the aspects also discussed by ^{Tardif (2012}), who argues that professional choices and teacher knowledge are related not only to subjective and experiential aspects but also to social determinants and to the work context in which teachers are inserted, that is, to the concrete conditions in which their work develops. In the particular case of the teaching profession, the working conditions to which schools and teachers are subjected, as well as the valorization or devaluation of the teaching career, can bring students closer to or further from the choice of such profession, and can also push professionals already in office into remaining or abandoning teaching.

The objective conditions and the valorization of the teaching work were some of the themes commented on by the scholarship students in their interviews. When questioned about whether or not to follow the career of the teaching profession and about the influences of the PIBID in this choice, some of them indicated that they wish to follow the teaching profession and that the Program influenced them positively in this direction, as can be seen in the following reports:

Yes, PIBID has influenced. In a way I had already chosen, PIBID only strengthened it . (DB, our emphasis)

I did not want to be a teacher, so I worked in a store, then when the teacher {area coordinator} talked about PIBID I stopped working and got the scholarship here at PIBID and now I want to be a teacher . (DB, our emphasis)

In fact, {PIBID} influenced it because I wanted to go to engineering, but after I got into PIBID, I saw that one does not really have a vision of how much teachers can be and how important they are , and for me, I was greatly influenced by PIBID. (AB, our emphasis)

When I started PIBID, the first class that the {supervisor teacher} said “Go ahead, teach”, I fell in love, I said, “That’s it right here for the rest of my life.” I left the school almost crying from the emotion. (BB, our emphasis)

PIBID influenced me because at school you actually land into the classroom. It helped me decide . (AB, our emphasis)

Based on these reports, it is possible to observe that the PIBID has, to a certain extent, encouraged teacher education and contributed to the students’ contact with the daily routine of basic education, which is in line with the objectives proposed by the Program and by the National Policy for Teacher Education. However, for many of the interviewed students, the choice for teaching is not necessarily associated with acting as teachers of basic education, as can be seen in the excerpts below:

{...} I really want to be a teacher, but not just a high school teacher. I know I need to study hard. But I would like to work as a university professor . Not only in the {specific content A} part but also in the teaching part. It would be cool. (AB, our emphasis)

The idea is to stay in high school for a while and, if I can get a master’s degree, a doctorate, work with the undergraduate . (AB, our emphasis)

I want to teach basic education first and then go to higher education . (DB, our emphasis)

It´s like that, it’s my idea to start with high school and then go deeper, studying and being able to teach in higher education, in college . (AB, our emphasis)

This aspect is also reported by one of the area coordinators interviewed:

Now we have students in PIBID who have already reported to me that they do not go to the public network. They do not want to; they want to get a master’s degree, to do a doctorate, to follow the academic career more at the top level . (BCA, our emphasis)

It is interesting to note in the testimonies the preference of some scholarship students for the higher teaching in detriment of acting in basic education. The analysis of the interviews allows us to observe that, although they do not exclude the possibility of work at this level of education, the students consider the teaching work developed at the university to be more highly valued. Some of them reported that PIBID influenced their choice of high school teaching due to the activities carried out and the contact that the program provides with teachers and the school, but most show a preference for academic and university careers or even for work in other areas of activity, such as industry. In many cases, this preference is associated with issues such as salary and material work conditions.

One of the students interviewed, for example, reported his desire to be a high school teacher, but added: “I do not want my support to leave the classroom only” (AB). For him and several other scholarship recipients, post-graduation and university work are associated with a better remuneration and appreciation of the work of the teacher, as we can observe in this testimony:

It’s how I say it to people, “I do not know if I want to spend my whole life in a classroom,” which I find stressful. You know, I find it very stressful because of the system itself as it is, you know? So, I see that, like, the teacher is too undervalued, you know ? The Government devalues it a lot. So it’s stressful at that point. So, well, a will, it’s even difficult because sometimes I´m dying for it. I go to class, time goes by fast. I like it, you know, teaching. Time goes by fast, it’s nice. But I do not want to spend my whole life there. I want it to be for a while, maybe after I do a post-graduation or something, I want to go to the University, to teach at the University . (DB, our emphasis)

The intention of the students to follow the teaching of the higher education can be evidenced, also, in some of the reports presented by the management coordinators interviewed:

There are some {initiation scholarship students} who say, “No, teacher, now my goal is to finish the course and to leave for the master’s degree . But my heart is still divided. I do not know if I go to the Master’s degree in Education, or if I go to the master’s degree in the hard area. “ {...} But thinking about being a university professor. They do not want high school anymore. They say “no, now I want more, I want more” . (CG, our emphasis)

What I think is bad, but that is no fault of the PIBID and everything, is that there many of our students who passed through the PIBID {...} and have already gone to the master’s degree, which was not a CAPES project , but I do not see that that´s bad, I think that someone who goes, does the PIBID and does a master’s degree and then goes back to university, he’s going to have that PIBID look that’s going to be important when he’s a teacher, probably a bachelor’s degree. (CG, our emphasis)

Thus, we can affirm that, in the analyzed context, while presenting itself as a positive influence on the professional choice of the scholarship holders, PIBID has not presented itself as an incentive to the permanence of the same ones in the teaching of basic education, as objectives the program. Another example that illustrates the preference of these students for higher education is related to the fact that many of the respondents, especially of two of the subprojects analyzed, relate the PIBID with an opportunity to enrich the curriculum and, consequently, to go into post-graduation and the academic career. A more alarming aspect can be observed in the reports presented by other students, which show the discouragement of the teaching profession due to the low salaries, the devaluation of the career and the adverse working conditions that they observe in the schools in which they are inserted by their participation in the program:

I did not want to be a teacher, now I ended up enjoying it, but at the same time that I ended up liking it, there’s a lot discouraging me too . (BB, our emphasis)

The term “initiation to teaching” did not appeal to me. The scholarship, yes, not the name. (AB)

I honestly do not want to be a teacher . In the future, I intend to open my own company. I do not know of what yet, but I want to have my own business. Maybe when I retire, I´ll teach . (AB, our emphasis)

I feel like working in basic education, but not like staying there for the rest of my life. There´s the will, yes, for the children; the incentive for you to be there, no. For the money, you don´t want to go . (DB, our emphasis)

Oh, I do not know. I even want to work for a while in schools, I was even thinking about picking classes to teach, but sometimes I stop and think, like, there´s a teacher who works there, in {specific content D}, he works 60 hours, you say “whoa, 60 hours” to earn about, you must probably earn about 4,000, but you work so hard . Then I think of myself as a woman, how I’m going to have a child, it’s something we think, imagine ... So if you also get 20 hours, 20 hours is also a state issue, you can increase your salary, but you have to study hard enough to be able to stay with 40 hours. (DB, our emphasis)

There are 40 classes per teacher, I do not know how much is the time/activity ... I think 20 percent that you will get out of the activity, only one teacher in the room, 17 classes . Like she {the fellow scholarship student} has said, the teacher {supervisor} has been there for 20 years the same way, teaching, it gets annoying, it discourages even the students to become a teacher . It had to be 20 hours a week, like here in college, 20 hours of classes a week and 20 hours to prepare classes, 1 hour for each class. Imagine the quality of these lessons then. This is getting worse. Why? There´s an increasing lack of professionals and it´s getting further away from achieving this . (BB, our emphasis)

Actually, it’s that thing, I’ve seen a lot of teachers say that to be a teacher you cannot think about your salary , you need to have love for the work because no one has become a teacher for the salary, he has become a teacher for his love of the profession. I do not agree . (DB, our emphasis)

We say, “God, it’s four years of studying this here, four years of pure stress, for you to earn a salary for a job.” I do not know, there are so many people who have no formation and earn better than a teacher . (DB, our emphasis)

Sometimes it seems like they {elementary school teachers} are simply doing that and letting it happen. So it looks like it’s cauterized, you know... then the fear is that we, getting too much in contact with them, we’ll end up being contaminated with that morbid discouragement from them , you know, and we get contaminated with it. (BB, our emphasis)

There is another condition that I think is part of our life, I do not know, but that is the question of security. There are students, things we hear about, not much part of our life, but it’s a concern. If I go to a school that has drugs, that has violence, that has ... this is a situation I would not want to face. I wish my school had the conditions, the ideal conditions , without those. That’s a concern for me. I do not want it. And if it’s in a school, if I get a school, I’ll see that the school is like that, and I’m going to get out. I’m not going to bother. I’m not going to go through these conditions because I know I will not know where I’m going to lean, I will not know if I’m going to be safe. This is a condition that I think is essential for the teacher’s career . (AB, our emphasis)

Yes, we are put against many situations. There are students that you ... it’s not ... we do not hear in the university that you’re going to have a primary school student coming to school with a machete, who will start slashing their own arms with a razor, who will pick up a pin and will pierce the ear and everything . We do not ... not that... (CB, our emphasis)

Based on these reports, we can see that PIBID, while providing undergraduate students with a contact with the reality and their insertion in the school daily life of basic education - and precisely because of this contact and insertion - has led some students to give up on taking up the teaching profession, especially at this level of education. Such a consideration can also be confirmed by the testimony of one of the students interviewed, who reported that she did not wish to pursue a teaching career. When questioned about PIBID having influenced this decision, she said:

I think so. With PIBID I saw that ... God in heaven! I’m going to suffer a lot if I’m a teacher . I think that in Law School I will make it ... I´d have to study and work, but I think that being inside a classroom is very difficult, being exposed to being hit by a chair. I think it’s even harder to be a teacher than to stay, I don´t know, inside an office. The relationship with the students is ... if the way was like, just go and teach at a college. But you have to start there with little children! (CB, our emphasis)

Still, on the influence of the PIBID in the choice by the magisterium, other two scholarships reported:

I think the positive influence is the same as the negative, which is to see what reality is like. We will be more prepared for reality, but the downside is that we get disenchanted . There are days when I say, “My God, what will I do with my life? Is that right? “. (CB, our emphasis)

But there were students who left PIBID , Clarice, for example, she told me that it was in PIBID that she saw that she did not really want to teach, it was not what she wanted for her life . (AB, our emphasis)

For many of the interviewees, basic education teachers lack, among other things, an incentive for their training: salaries consistent with the complexity of the activity they develop; security for the development of their functions at school; valorization by society, the State and the school community; good career plans; time and flexibility to carry out school work; and clear objectives about their responsibilities.

Among the aspects pointed out by scholarships in their reports, the salary issue is one of the most striking. This is certainly a central element in discussions related to teaching. ^{Vaillant (2006}), when analyzing the teaching profession in the context of Latin America, based on the project Teachers in Latin America: Radiography of a Profession, identifies some common points between the different countries of the Latin American context, among which we can highlight: professional environment that makes it difficult to retain good teachers in teaching; few incentives for the profession to be the first career choice; inadequate working conditions; serious problems in pay and career. According to the author, the salary levels of Latin American countries are generally much lower than those of developed countries, a factor that has greatly hampered the permanence of teachers in the profession and the choice of young people for their career. Similarly, ^{Gatti and Barreto (2009}), in a study that analyzes the profile and the teaching career in Brazil, point out that the initial teacher salary, in general, has been low when compared to other professions that require the same level of education, a factor that, coupled with the lack of professional prestige and the precariousness of working conditions and teaching career, has negatively influenced the demand for this work among young people, as well as joining and remaining in the profession.

Some of the students interviewed reported comments they hear from the supervisors themselves and other school teachers in which they are inserted on the salary issue and the teaching working conditions:

There are strikes. There are complaints from teachers who do not earn well . So this deal, you know? It´s out of the ordinary. It lowers your esteem, you know ... It throws reality open. There are students ... And that’s what you’ll face. It is the day to day. It’s the routine. But it´s that deal, you know? It also influences you. Because you did not see a happy teacher going a week without complaining about something . You know? There’s always one. That’s why I do not want to be a teacher. We sometimes lose that ... that thing, that enchantment for the course . (CB, our emphasis)

The teachers themselves who work with me, they say to me, “do not get too caught up here,” {...} try the master’s degree, something, this does not give much future”. Then there’s a teacher who has 25 years of career , she is already retired and still there, she said it like that “I’m retired, but I worry about the future of my son, because my retirement, I do not know if I’ll get his college,” then she already has this issue, that too, her talking about that to me, worries me because, you go, study so much, like in the course of {specific content D}, it´s tough, you not being able to work all day, it´s hard that you´ll have to go for a reality where your salary is not a big deal , and the students too, I think this is a bit tricky. (DB, our emphasis)

According to ^{Marcelo Garcia (2010)}, recent reports have shown teachers’ dissatisfaction with their working conditions, especially with material conditions such as salary and school infrastructure. Moreover, among teachers, there is a widespread sense of loss of prestige and devaluation of their social image. This phenomenon is repeated in many countries and appears to be evidenced in a series of critical symptoms, such as the decrease in the number of people who opt for the teaching profession and the association that society makes between the poor quality of basic education and the performance of teachers. For the author, this status problem naturally entails a situation of nonconformity and low self-esteem among professionals and among those who enter teacher education courses.

This is also one of the points debated by authors like ^{Gatti and Barreto (2009}), ^{Tartuce et al. (2010}), ^{Gatti et al. (2011)}, ^{Oliveira (2011}) and ^{Tardif (2012}), for whom the complexity of the teaching activity, coupled with the precariousness of working conditions, the sense of insecurity and helplessness from the objective and subjective point of view of the profession, of remuneration and expectations offered, has made it difficult to maintain conditions favorable to the social and professional self-esteem of teachers and result in low attractiveness for the career. For these authors, the result of this is the questioning of teachers about whether or not to continue their careers, personal incompliance with the profession and the abandonment of the profession by a large number of teachers, as well as by those who are still in the process of education.

This aspect can be observed in the study conducted by ^{Gatti and Barreto (2009}), which has as its data source the socio-economic questionnaire of the ENADE of 2005 answered by undergraduate students. According to the authors, when asked about the main reason that led them to opt for the degree course, 65.1% of Pedagogy students attributed the choice to the fact of hoping to be a teacher, while that percentage decreases to approximately half between other graduates. In addition, among the answers presented, “the choice of teaching as a kind of ‘unemployment insurance’, that is, as an alternative in case there is no possibility of another activity, is relatively high, especially among the graduates of other areas other than Pedagogy “(^{GATTI, BARRETO, 2009}, p.160). According to the authors, it is surprising that a large percentage of students in Pedagogy and undergraduate courses have the intention of pursuing a postgraduate course (31.8% and 33.3%, respectively), which also corroborates the results of our study.

Likewise, ^{Tartuce et al. (2010}), when investigating the attractiveness of the teaching career in Brazil from the perspective of high school students from different regions of the country, found that, despite recognizing the value of the teacher, most of the students indicated that they did not intend to follow the teaching profession. According to the authors, when asked about whether or not to pursue the teaching career, “no” was the automatic response of many of them, with expressions of rejection followed by discomfort. For many of the students questioned in the study, the degree does not provide a salary return compatible with the teacher’s attributions and responsibilities, considered by many to be difficult and devalued by society. According to data presented by the authors, for these students, the profession faces conditions that are often precarious, which has been a reason for dissatisfaction among those who are inserted in the field of teaching and for rejection of those who are still on the verge of entering the labor market or in the process of formation. And, as we can see in the reports presented by scholarship recipients in their interviews, these adverse working conditions and the low self-esteem of teachers about their work, observed by them in their contact with daily school life, have been reflected in their formation and in their professional choices.

Through this, we can see that the PIBID has influenced the formation and professional choice of students from two differentiated and antagonistic perspectives: for one part, it has encouraged and contributed to the education for teachers in basic education and, for another, it has also contributed but in the sense of showing the reality of the great majority of our schools and the objective conditions to which their professionals have been subjected. Such a contribution is possible through the contact, which this program provides to undergraduate students, with the daily life of the public school of basic education. An analysis in this perspective allows us to consider that instead of equating the problem of the lack of teachers for basic education in the direction of a policy of valorization of teacher education and performance, PIBID, as a program that integrates the National Policy for Teacher Education, may be helping to push away some of the undergraduate teaching students from the teaching career.

The following report is from one of the collaborating professors interviewed, which makes clear these antagonistic influences of the Program in the education and professional choice of undergraduate teaching students:

For many students, it {PIBID} comes only as an opportunity to get a scholarship to help keep up with the bills . But from the moment they join the Program they begin to realize what the future profession that they may follow really will be. Some get scared and flee, as it has already happened, others remain and want to continue . So I think PIBID comes in this direction to show the academic student ever since the second period, or first period, the reality of the school. (BC, our emphasis)

It is not, therefore, a problem related to the Initiation to Teaching Program, but rather to the reality observed by the students in the schools in which they are inserted. The testimonies of one of the scholarship students interviewed and of a collaborating teacher, together with the other reports already presented and discussed, allow us to understand this idea:

“It’s not PIBID’s fault. I think that the issue is reality itself because you go against things”. (CB, our emphasis)

This is in fact not a PIBID problem {...}. So, this difficulty of interacting and perceiving the dismay of some teachers, the heavy workload of some teachers, it is a reality in which before they {initiation to teaching scholarships} graduate they have already seen and also discussed here with us. (AC, our emphasis)

In this sense, we agree with ^{Saviani (2009}) when he argues that the issue of teacher education cannot be dissociated from the problem of working conditions that involve the teaching career, in which the issues of salary and working hours must be equated. According to the author, precarious working conditions not only neutralize teachers’ actions but also hamper good training, “because they act as a discouraging factor in the search for teacher education courses and dedication to studies” (153).

This idea can also be confirmed by the report presented by one of the area coordinators interviewed in this research, according to which the PIBID has brought great contributions in the education of students, motivating some of them to stay in the course, in the change of practices from supervising teachers and in approaching the university with the school. However, while recognizing the contributions of the program, the same coordinator, when asked about the possible limitations that PIBID may present as a teacher education program, makes a general criticism of the training policy in the country. The excerpt below is relatively long but very important for us to understand the vision presented by him, which, in problematizing adverse working conditions in public schools, meets the questions and ideas presented by many of the scholarship students:

Look, I see all these policies, Prodocência ⁵ , PIBID, PET ⁶ , that the government does, it´s no use, from my point of view, to have all these processes of formation in the university, to take the student, do all this work that we and many out there do, mostly all, PIBID, PET, Prodocência, teacher education programs, if there is not a policy of teacher valorization . Look, my criticism hits there, if the federal government invests so much in programs to ensure students in the teaching degree programs, our undergraduate teaching courses, but it heeded us that these undergraduates, when they take notice of the reality of the school, of the day to day there, of how things work, is what will drive the students away, which will make them give up their undergraduate teaching course . It’s not that discipline, that course, that college, the course he’s going to have to do at the university, but the poor payment, the excessive workload they´re going to have, the lack of support, of investment, the student arrives and has contact with the supervisor, and he hears the supervisor complaining about the lack of support from the {State Education Department}, that they have been going on strike, mobilization because the salary is low, when the government issues a public notice, whose objective is to collect money, and not concerned about really selecting good teachers for their classrooms, I am very worried about the demotivation that this causes in the students not only of the PIBID but those who will do the internships in the schools and who see the reality, this is undeniable, you know? The {specific content A}, it works only with high school. But there are courses there, which work with high school and fundamental, then they involve the city and the state. And worse, suddenly even the city is better than the state. But no use, you have to value the higher teaching. This is what is difficult to understand and apply. You need to have these programs, they are great, but then the students see reality and say, “Oops, I’m going to do a master’s degree, I’m going to do a doctorate, because I want to go to higher education, teacher education, but in higher education, I do not want to be a state teacher, to earn little and to have an excessive workload, and to have all that power relationship that we spoke in schools, to go through all those problems”. We had PIBID students in a school that I had to get them out of there when I came in, that the principal was chasing the students, wanting to use them as labor to do jobs inside the school. And I had to interfere and get the students out of there. So these are things that, you know, and the lack of global incentive, that our education is scrapped in elementary and secondary education, basic education in general, I still see the small feuds in schools, the directors, and then the thing becomes much more complicated. Then the student, you prepare the student for this and say, “Look, this is what awaits you”, and say to him, “stay in the teaching degree course, because, look what awaits you”, it is difficult. (ACA, our emphasis)

From this report and from the testimonies presented by the scholarship recipients, we see that the measures proposed by the State for the education of teachers have not indicated a real concern with the valorization of the teaching profession in order to develop actions that guarantee, in practice, a job and salary plan that represents a stimulus to enter and remain in the profession and a social recognition that reveals the true role that the teacher plays in society. On the contrary, these measures have been configured only as compensatory and emergency strategies and as parallel training paths, developed in the face of the shortage of teachers from different areas of knowledge in the country.

According to data from the audit conducted in 2014 by the National Audit Court (TCU)⁷ in partnership with the States Audit Courts⁸, there is an estimated deficit in Brazil of at least 32,700 teachers with specific training in all of the twelve compulsory subjects that comprise the high school curriculum. Physics is the most deficient discipline - more than nine thousand professors - and it is the only case with deficit in all the States. Next, come the disciplines of Chemistry and Sociology, both lacking more than four thousand professionals.

The data presented by this audit are in addition to the statistics presented by the CNE in 2007 and show the alarming shortage of teachers for basic education. However, as we have already discussed, such scarcity cannot be characterized as an emergency problem, but as a chronic problem, historically produced by the withdrawal of State responsibility for the maintenance of quality public education and the education of its educators. According to ^{Freitas (2007}), the conditions of pedagogical work in school, especially in the public school, combined with the production of the material life of our childhood and youth, demand massive public investment in policies that improve these conditions in practice. After all, it does not seem coherent to design training with levels of demand that represent the importance of the role of the teacher without, for example, considering the need to associate it with good working conditions and a career that is attractive and stimulates investment of teachers.

The absence of these elements, especially in public education, ends up removing from the magisterium large portions of youth that could be incorporated into the processes of formation of the new generations. The large number of students who still choose the teaching degree in Higher Education Institutions shows the potential of these young people in the direction of the profession (^{FREITAS, 2007}). However, the education programs proposed by the State for the development of initial and continuing education of primary school teachers have not, for the most part, contributed to overcoming the reality experienced in public schools, but only to mask them. Thus, instead of encouraging teacher education, it ultimately discourages students from choosing the profession.

This idea can also be illustrated in the testimony of one of the interviewed management coordinators, according to which the reality and the working conditions, salary and teaching career observed and experienced by scholarship students in schools have removed a portion of the licentiate students from basic education:

{...} the pupils of PIBID, as they learn much more in the area of teaching, it is very difficult to hold students in basic education . So, not thinking about CAPES, but thinking about the public network, while these teachers are not better paid, no “pibidian” will stay. None . They will want to do masters, they will want to do a doctorate, and they will teach very well at university. {...} And then, basic education still continues with that hole, with that thing, so, it will receive the ones who cannot get anything else, or who will only stay for a while, to see if they can get something better . It’s because, well, not that money is everything, but we need a decent life, right? And when they realize there’s a possibility of jumping from a salary x to 3, 4x, do you think they’re still going to stay? No. And since they are few, in the end, {...} those will be able to enter the university, because we have a shortage of teachers, first in the area of education. And then, as they already have the notion of teaching, many of them already do scientific initiation, then one thing pulls the other, and goes to the master and doctorate. (CG, our emphasis)

A similar idea can be observed in the report of one of the area coordinators interviewed, which also highlights the lack of interest of some teaching undergraduate students in compiling the number of scholarships available in the PIBID subproject and even in remaining in the teaching undergraduate course:

We have eight scholarships, but we do not have the eight recipients because there are no students interested to assign them to. We are waiting for the freshmen. {...} In many cases, we lost the best undergraduate students to the engineering course; they migrated to engineering, used the teaching degree as a trampoline . It’s a trampoline, because they know that if they cannot get in directly through the ENEM they can go through the teaching degree as a second option, that they can do it, then in the second semester they already request a transfer too, we know that they will get equivalence of the disciplines of the teaching degree. (...) So that’s it, we have students who report the same, “ah teacher, as soon as the engineering´s go, I´m going...”. For them, the engineer is the guy who will get a better salary. And we know that society values the engineer. What gets them the most is the social devaluation of teachers themselves . (BCA, our emphasis)

Thus, we can see that the incentive for higher education teacher education for basic education and the valorization of the teaching profession, designated as objectives of the PIBID by Ordinance no. 96/2013, and also by the texts of the subprojects analyzed in this research, cannot be guaranteed only by the insertion of undergraduate students in basic education schools. The scholarship students’ contact with daily school life contributes to their formation, since it may favor, as we have already discussed, the much-needed articulation between the academic knowledge acquired at the university and the practical experience acquired in the contact with the profession. However, the mere insertion of these students into practice, as we can see from the reports, cannot in itself contribute to the valorization of teaching and, contrary to what is considered ideal by politics, can discourage a significant portion of the remaining in the teaching profession.

Some considerations

With this study we can observe that the PIBID - in the analyzed context -, while giving the students of the teaching degree the insertion and the contact with the school reality, has at the same time, contributed to the permanence of some students in the degree and in the teaching career (one of the objectives of the program) and led others to give up the profession of teaching precisely because of what they observe and experience in their contact with everyday school and with the teaching work in basic education.

According to the data analysis, the aspects that have most discouraged students from investing in the career of the teachers of basic education are related, in particular, to the absence of adequate working conditions and teaching career, to the excess of functions and delegated responsibilities to teachers in schools, as well as to the social and financial devaluation of the profession in relation to other careers that require the same level of schooling. And these are the aspects presented as some of the principles that underlie Decree 6,755 / 2009, which, among other measures, establishes the National Policy for Vocational Education of Teachers of Basic Education (BRASIL, 2009):

The importance of the teacher in the educational process of the school and its professional valorization, translated into permanent policies to encourage professionalism, a single day, career progression, continuing education, exclusive dedication to teaching, improved remuneration conditions and the guarantee of decent working conditions (BRASIL, 2009, article 2, subsection VIII, s / p).

With this, we observe the strengthening of ruptures and discontinuities that, throughout history, have characterized public education policies and their dialogue with the reality in which the educational process is constituted. We agree with ^{Freitas (2007}) when he argues that the clashes between differentiated teacher education projects have been marked by contradictory interests, evidencing inconsistencies in the process of policy definition and implementation. For the author, this problem lies in the fact that the valid interlocutors for the implementation of such policies were not the subjects of the educational process, those who, in schools and universities, should be active participants in the construction of educational policies: teachers, students, school educators and parents. Thus, it is evident the divorce between the current necessities of the public school and the eloquent speeches and texts presented on education by the policies.

As we already know, a education program, by itself, cannot change that reality. The incentive to teacher education and the valorization of the teaching of basic education, the first objectives of PIBID presented by Ordinance no. 96/2013 (^{BRAZIL, 2013}), depend on much more on a systematized, broad and global policy that aims, in practice, at the improvement of the objective working and career conditions that are offered to the schools and their professionals, than of education programs and the insertion of undergraduate teaching students in the educational context.

Authors such as ^{Vaillant (2006}), ^{Gatti and Barreto (2009}), ^{Maués (2011}), ^{Ferreira (2011}), ^{Oliveira (2011}), ^{Gattiet al. (2011)}, among others, when discussing teaching policies, affirm that, in addition to systemic programs of initial and continuing training, the valorization of teaching and the encouragement of the teaching profession require, first and foremost, making it more attractive - be it when entering or remaining in the market - with a significant improvement in the teacher’s remuneration pattern, his work load, his safety and career expectation, his image and social prestige, more motivating job prospects, as well as a professional environment that offers adequate and decent working conditions. The absence of a global educational policy that guarantees such conditions to the teaching work in the educational process can cause these professionals to be discouraged to enter, to remain and to develop in the profession.

The work that has been carried out in the field of teacher education within the scope of national politics has been hindered by the harsh reality of the field of work in the public school, which is also degraded and disqualified as a space for the formation of new generations. There are large numbers of teachers who leave the profession due to unfavorable working conditions, low wages or the impossibility of seeing a prospect of professional growth and continuity in their education process. And it is in these adverse conditions that teachers try to provoke the learning of all: a complex task in the context of a school questioned in its functions in the present times (^{FREITAS, 1999}).

Teachers who act responsibly and invest in their professional development have not taken this commitment properly considered. The increase in vacancies in basic education was accompanied by loss of quality in many cases, with a decrease in real wages, overcrowded classes, increased working hours, among other problems (^{FREITAS, 1999}; ^{FREITAS, 2007}). And it is precisely this reality that the students of the degree, potential future teachers, observe in their insertion in the school of basic education through internships and also through their participation as PIBID scholarship holders.

Certainly, the development of policies and programs aimed at favoring and mediating the students’ contact with the professional practice of the teaching profession in the period of initial formation becomes essential both for the teacher education process and for the quality of this process. However, thinking about a policy of teacher education implies treating both the initial and continuing education processes as well as the concrete conditions of work, salary and the teaching career, in the pursuit of quality education in real terms and not only formal. As long as such questions are not addressed, no teacher education program alone will be able to enhance teacher education and encourage students to remain in the teaching profession.