INTRODUCTION

Since the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988, a legal framework has been in place that stipulates limits on hiring temporary teachers on an exceptional basis by public school systems. Nevertheless, contrary to the law, the presence of temporary teachers is structural, permanent, and persistent in Brazilian public education. In 2011, the first year the school census included this type of teaching contract, temporary teachers represented 29% of all public school teachers in Brazil; in 2020, they represented 32% of the total. In the last decade, temporary teachers accounted for about one-third of teachers in public Basic Education networks in Brazil (INEPb).³

In this way, the conquest of public competition as a condition for valuing the teaching career has not yet been fully implemented in Brazil and has been repetitively threatened. Nevertheless, the administrative reform agenda is gaining prominence in the National Congress and the public debate. For instance, on September 23, 2021, the Proposal of Constitutional Amendment (PEC) 32/2020, authored by the Executive Branch, was approved by a Special Commission. Among other aspects, the substitute approved by the commission, which will still go to the plenary, sets a relevant precedent by constitutionalizing the permission of “general rules on hiring for a fixed term under administrative law” (^{BRASIL, 2021}, p. 10). Thus, in the current political context, public service, as conceived by the Federal Constitution of 1988, is under threat of dismantling. Therefore, the moment is ripe for research on the presence of a type of worker that, according to the legislation still in effect, should be the exception, not the rule: the temporary teacher.

The Brazilian literature investigating temporary teachers in public school networks has provided robust evidence that the working conditions offered to this professional entail a series of problems. ^{Ferreira (2016}) observed temporary teachers in the municipal network of Fortaleza, indicating that these professionals show significant signs of suffering and illness. ^{Nauroski (2014}) investigated the subjectivity of temporary teachers in the state network of Paraná and showed that these workers had forged a negative subjectivity because, according to the author, in the situations “observed in schools and, especially, in the reports collected, objective working conditions that generate suffering and malaise predominate” (^{NAUROSKI, 2014}, p. 219). ^{Venco (2018}) analyzed the effects of the New Public Management paradigm in São Paulo municipalities, highlighting the relationships between low working conditions, flexible contracts of temporary teachers, and students with more vulnerable profiles. Numerous studies have indicated that temporary teachers work under precarious conditions since their salaries are not linked to a Plan of Position, Career, and Remuneration (^{FERREIRA, 2013}); they are regularly forced to change schools (^{MARQUES, 2006}), and at the limit, they are not protected by labor legislation (^{FERREIRA, 2013}; ^{FELDMAN; COSTA, 2021}). In addition to worse conditions than permanent teachers, Silva Jr. and Oliveira (2019) highlighted, based on the case of Bahia State, the disadvantages of temporary teachers in relation, even to CLT rules, revealing that this type of contract creates special regimes that do not reproduce basic elements of worker protection.

Regarding the causes of the structural presence of temporary teachers in public Basic Education networks, research has indicated two prominent factors, both interrelated, namely: the hegemony of the neoliberal prescription that gained strength in Brazil in the 1990s (^{FERREIRA, 2016}) and the budget constraints of public networks. Within this perspective of analysis, ^{Santos (2016}) studied temporary teachers in the São Paulo state network from a budgetary point of view. The author’s research hypothesis was that

the budget amount allocated to the education function, specifically for the payment of basic education teachers, is insufficient to afford the hiring of a cadre of effective teachers that makes up, at least, a contingent of 90% of the teachers in the network (^{SANTOS, 2016}, p. 22).

As a more relevant research finding, ^{Santos (2016}, p. 117) indicated the savings the São Paulo state government “makes through a personnel policy anchored in a budgetary engineering to decrease spending on education from precariousness.” Another study that demonstrated the relationship between contract flexibilization and resource savings is that of ^{Araújo and Jann (2018}). The authors analyzed the case of Minas Gerais and highlighted the multiple ruptures of bonds that the bureaucracy involved in temporary contracts subjects teachers to.

^{Feldman and Alves (2020}) and Feldman and Costa (²⁰²¹), in turn, conducted case studies, respectively, in the Pará municipalities of Portel and Cametá, investigating the policy of hiring temporary teachers in these two municipal networks; both studies indicated that teaching work is an important part of these municipalities’ formal salaried labor market. In Portel, between 2011 and 2017, teachers in the municipal network represented an average of 37% of the salaried workers registered by the Annual Social Information Report (RAIS); in Cametá, between 2011 and 2018, they represented an average of 24%. The studies also pointed out that the appointment of temporary teachers has great relevance in municipal political disputes, especially in rural areas. According to Feldman and Costa (²⁰²¹, p. 17), “taking into account [...] that the rural area has a significant electoral importance, the correlation between the appointment of temporary teachers and municipal political disputes is observed.” In Cametá, as the study showed, between 2011 and 2018, on average, 94% of temporary teachers worked in rural areas. Thus, these two studies indicated new causal possibilities for understanding the significant presence of temporary teachers in the municipal networks of Pará State.

^{Lima and Azevedo (2022}) analyzed career plans’ effects on teachers’ valuing. They showed how the condition of a temporary contract is a variable that continues to interfere structurally with the inequalities of the Brazilian educational system since it is no coincidence that the networks where there are no Career Plans are also those where there is a predominance of temporary contracts with teachers with lower initial qualifications and less access to graduate studies.

Given these concerns and the general objective of analyzing the presence of temporary teachers in the set of municipal public networks of Pará State between 2011 and 2020, some questions were formulated. What is the percentage of temporary teachers in the municipal networks of Pará State? Does this percentage indicate that the legislation is being complied with? Do the municipal networks of Pará have similarities or differences concerning the presence of temporary teachers in their staff? Are there any variables that impact the municipalities of Pará in relation to the percentage of temporary teachers in their school systems?

To answer these questions, five analysis variables were defined in order to verify if they impact the municipalities of Pará concerning the percentage of temporary teachers in their education networks, considering the causal factors pointed out by the literature, as previously explained (^{SANTOS, 2016}; ^{FELDMAN; ALVES; 2020}; ^{FELDMAN; COSTA, 2021}). More specifically, the literature inspired the last three variables of analysis. These are the five variables: 1) Population size of municipalities, 2) GDP per capita of municipalities, 3) Financing capacity of municipal networks, 4) Percentage of enrollment in rural schools in municipal networks (henceforth % of EnRur), and 5) the ratio between the number of teachers in education networks and wage-earning personnel in municipalities (henceforth Teacher/Wage Ratio).

Moreover, why conduct research whose scope is to analyze the presence of temporary teachers in the 144 municipalities of Pará? First, Pará has the highest rate of municipalizing elementary school enrollments in northern Brazil (^{MARIALVA, 2021}). In 2020, there were 78,690 teachers in Pará’s public networks, of which 64,851 (82%) were linked to a municipal network. Second, because the presence of temporary teachers in Pará’s municipal networks is more pronounced than in the state network. In 2011, Para’s municipal networks had 38% temporary teachers, while the state networks had 14%. In 2020, municipal networks had 37% temporary teachers, while state networks had 11% (INEPa).

Lastly, third, it is important to investigate the 144 municipalities of Pará together in the historical context known as fund policy (^{GOUVEIA; SOUZA, 2015}). This is a unique historical period in the financing of Basic Education, which began in 1996 with the Fund for Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and Valorization of Teaching (henceforth FUNDEF), improved and consolidated in 2006 with the Fund for Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and Valorization of Education Professionals (henceforth transitional FUNDEB), which was again modified in 2020 (henceforth permanent FUNDEB). In the fund policy before the permanent FUNDEB, each of the 26 state federal units plus the Federal District had a functioning dynamic that faced inequalities with specific contours. Thus, it is highly relevant to perform an analysis of all the municipalities of a state. We established the chronological cut-off from 2011 to 2020 because the School Census only records the number of temporary contracts in 2011. Moreover, as of 2010, the Union’s complementation to the provisional FUNDEB stabilized at 10% of the fund’s total value. Pará has received, since the beginning of the fund policy, a complementation from the Union, which reached its maximum value and stabilized as of 2010.

In addition to this introduction, the research methodology will be explained below. Next, we will briefly describe the legislative framework that regulates hiring temporary teachers in public school systems. Then we will go on to explain our findings. First, we will show the oscillation in the percentage of temporary teachers in the municipal networks of Pará State between 2011 and 2020. We will then analyze separately how each of the five selected variables relates to the percentage of temporary teachers in Pará’s municipal networks. Finally, we will make concluding remarks reflecting on the results of the research as a whole and suggesting a research agenda for new studies on the subject.

METHODOLOGY

This study employed a quantitative approach of exploratory and descriptive nature. For data collection, different documental bases were used: School Census (^{INEPa, 2011}, ²⁰²⁰), Central Register of Companies (^{IBGEa, 2011}, ²⁰¹⁹), Accounting Data of Municipalities (FINBRA) (^{STN, 2011}, 2020), Domestic Product of Municipalities (^{IBGEb, 2011}, 2018), and Brazilian Census of 2010 (^{IBGE, 2010}). The data collected from these bases were crossed and grouped according to the five variables of analysis: 1) Population size of the municipalities, 2) GDP per capita of the municipalities, 3) Financing capacity of the municipal networks, 4) % of EnRur, and 5) Teacher/Wage Ratio.

Except for the analysis based on the variable municipal population size, in which the municipalities were grouped into four sizes, the municipalities were divided into quartiles with the variable used as input reference. After dividing the sample of municipalities into quartiles, each quartile’s main measures of position (mean, median, standard deviation, lower limit, and upper limit) were crossed with the same measures of the position of the percentage of temporary teachers observed in that quartile.

When the division of the samples into quartiles was performed using an input variable, we first checked to see if there were any outliers (i.e., municipalities with atypical values out of sync with the other values of the sample, which may generate distortions in the interpretation of the data). If there were outliers in the sample, they were removed, and the quartiles were recalculated without the presence of these outliers. Q1 was the lower limit of the second quartile, Q3 was the lower limit of the fourth quartile, and IQR was the interquartile range; the lower limit for calculating the outliers below was defined by the formula Q1 - 1.5 x IQR, and the upper limit for calculating the outliers above was defined by the formula Q3 + 1.5 x IQR.

We always used two reference years to verify the presence of temporary teachers in the municipal networks of Pará: 2011 and 2020. Thus, this study compares two samples, one from the first year in which the School Census provided data regarding the type of contract for teachers, 2011, and another from the last year of the transitional FUNDEB (2020). It is important to note that the year 2020, despite being atypical given the COVID-19 pandemic, is not atypical in the number of temporary teachers in the Para municipal networks registered by the School Census. In 2019, there were 67,656 teachers in Pará’s municipal networks, with 24,151 (36%) being temporary. In 2020, this ratio practically remained the same, with 64,851 teachers in Pará’s municipal networks, 24,177 (37%) of them being temporary (^{INEPa, 2019}, ²⁰²⁰).

For some analysis variables, data for 2020 were not available. For GDP per capita, data from 2018 were used to correlate with the percentage of temporary teachers in 2020, given that the proposal considers GDP per capita as an indicator of the municipality’s economic development. In this case, the year 2020 is peculiar due to the economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the availability of the 2018 data taken here as indicative of the pre-pandemic picture seems adequate to take the variable as a comparative element to the year 2011. To determine the Teacher/Wage Ratio, 2019 wage-employed personnel data was used, which indicates the December number for this year (i.e., we related the percentage of temporary teachers in the 2020 school networks to the December 2019 wage-employed personnel number). This enabled us to compare with the private labor market in the pre-pandemic municipal context, considering that unemployment levels in December 2020 had completely atypical changes.

To measure the financing capacity of municipal networks, we use the concept of total annual value per student (hereinafter VAAT), which was established by Constitutional Amendment No. 108 of August 26, 2020 (^{BRASIL, 2020}), which made the FUNDEB permanent.⁴ Before moving on to the analysis of the empirical data of the research, however, we will briefly summarize the legal framework that regulates the hiring of temporary teachers in Brazil and in Pará State.

TEMPORARY TEACHERS: LEGISLATION

The constitutional text, in Article 37, item IX, stipulates that temporary hiring must “meet the temporary need of exceptional public interest.” In Article 37, item II stipulates that “investiture in public office or employment depends on prior approval in a public competition of tests or tests and titles [...],” except for commissioned positions, which does not refer to teachers. In Article 206, item V, the constitution stipulates the “valuing of school education professionals, guaranting by law, career plans, with entry exclusively through public competition of tests and titles, for public networks” (^{BRASIL, 1988}[2021]).

The Law of Directives and Bases of National Education (LDB) established, in Article 67, item I, the entrance into the education systems as “exclusively by public competition of tests and title” (^{BRASIL, 1996}). The 2014 National Education Plan (PNE) establishes, in strategy 18.1, referring to goal 18,

Structure the public Basic Education networks so that, by the beginning of the third year of this PNE, 90% (ninety percent), at least, of the respective teaching professionals [...] are occupying permanent positions and are working in the school networks to which they are linked (^{BRASIL, 2014}).

The Pará State Education Plan, on the other hand, reproduces, almost verbatim, strategy 18.1 of the PNE (^{PARÁ, 2014}). It should be noted that it is up to each federated entity to legislate about its staffing. Therefore, there are rules for exceptional temporary contracts formulated in each of the 144 municipalities of Pará: organic laws, municipal education plans, PCCRs, and statutes of municipal civil servants, as well as specific rules for the validity of temporary contracts. However, it was not possible to draw an overview of this legislation within the scope of this research.

Let us reiterate, therefore, what has been established by a broad legal framework: the presence of temporary teachers in public school networks should be sporadic and residual. Let us now see if the municipalities of Pará are in accordance with the legislation in force.

TEMPORARY TEACHERS IN THE MUNICIPAL NETWORKS OF PARÁ BETWEEN 2011 AND 2020

Table 1 provides an overview of the municipal networks in Pará regarding the percentage of temporary teachers. It is important to note that in 2011, there were 143 municipalities in the state. With the creation of Mojuí dos Campos in 2013, which was emancipated from Santarém, Pará now has 144 municipalities.

First, regarding the data in Table 1, we highlight the non-compliance with the law. In 2020, when according to the PNE, public school networks should have a maximum of 10% of temporary teachers, only 4% of the municipalities in Pará met this legal requirement. Secondly, one can note the significant variation in the percentage of temporary teachers in the 144 municipal networks in Pará, which is unequivocally a very heterogeneous picture. Lastly, we can see that the situation changed little between 2011 and 2020. Table 2 also lists this diagnosis of maintenance of the status quo.

Table 2 shows that, between 2011 and 2020, the presence of temporary teachers remained stable if we look at the municipal networks of Pará as a whole, with a change of only one percentage point in the mean, although with a change in the standard deviation, indicating internal variation in the groups of municipalities in the sample, which will be better illustrated below. Let us now turn to Table 3, in which a negative oscillation means an increase in the percentage of temporary teachers between 2011 and 2020, while a positive oscillation means a reduction in the percentage of temporary teachers during the same period.

Translating the data in Table 3, 25% of the 143 municipalities in Pará (Mojuí do Campos, non-existent in 2011, was removed from this sample) increased, between 2011 and 2020, the percentage of temporary teachers in their school networks between 11% (Q₁) and 48% (minimum). The most extreme case of negative oscillation (the minimum in Table 3) was the municipality of Santa Isabel do Pará, which had 12% of temporary teachers in its network in 2011 and went on to have 60% in 2020, in a negative oscillation of 48%. Nevertheless, 25% of the 143 municipalities in Pará had decreased the percentage of temporary teachers in their networks between 13% (Q₃) and 55% (Maximum). The most extreme case of positive oscillation (the maximum in Table 3) was the municipality of Nova Esperança do Piriá, which had 87% of temporary teachers in its network in 2011 and went on to have 32% in 2020, in a positive oscillation of 55%. If we analyze the 144 municipalities as a whole, the impression is that nothing has changed, meaning that, on average, the municipalities decreased the percentage of temporary teachers in their networks by 1 point (positive oscillation of 1%). However, within this picture of little change in the sample as a whole, we observe municipalities that oscillated significantly between 2011 and 2020.

Having observed the general panorama of the municipal school systems in Pará, we will now analyze separately how each variable relates to the percentage of temporary teachers.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In 2020, only 4% of the municipalities in Pará had less than 10% of temporary teachers in their networks; the other 96% of the municipalities were beyond the established by the PNE. This is a broad and generalized picture of non-compliance with the goal of valuing teachers through a career. This picture remained stable between 2011 and 2020 since the state average of temporary teachers in the municipal networks oscillated from 38% to 37%. It should also be noted that this is a very heterogeneous scenario, with municipalities of different types presenting a temporary contract strategy to maintain the labor force in their networks. Therefore, the constitutional rule that should be treated as exceptional has become a common strategy in the expansion process of the municipal school systems in Pará. The research sought to test variables that could explain trends for the types of municipalities that used this strategy.

As for the variables of analysis, we found that in three of them, it is possible to establish a low and diffuse correlation with the percentage of temporary teachers in the municipal school systems of Pará: population size of the municipalities, % of EnRur and the Teacher/Wage Ratio. In relation to the other two variables, GDP per capita of the municipalities and the financing capacity of the municipal networks (measured through VAAT), the data analyzed showed that it is more unlikely that this correlation exists.

What the data show, nevertheless, is a complex scenario in which these variables have been shown to influence the greater or lesser presence of temporary teachers in the networks but do not determine the volume of this presence. First, analyzing all the variables’ quartiles (remember that in the variable population size, no division by quartile was used), the lowest average number of temporary teachers in the networks was 30%, and the highest 43%. This means that the averages for all quartiles were very close to the state average for 2011 and 2020 (38 and 37%), indicating that if a variable influences the presence of temporary teachers in the networks, this influence should not be taken as a determinant. Moreover, our findings indicate that multiple causes explain the structural permanence of temporary teachers in the networks, and this is a multicausal phenomenon.

In this way, the most relevant finding of this study is an aspect that has been highlighted repeatedly throughout the text. Within all quartiles, in all variables, we observe minimums that indicate compliance with the legislation, that is, the residual presence of temporary teachers in the school systems, and maximums that indicate percentages well above what is allowed by the legislation. This indicates that the presence of more or less temporary teachers in the network is, to a large extent, a political decision made by the municipality. The internal political dynamics of each municipality are a factor that must be considered when analyzing the issue of temporary teachers. The very heterogeneous scenario, with municipalities showing enormous diversity concerning the presence of temporary teachers in their networks, indicates that the local political dynamic is an important explanatory factor.

Having made these considerations, let us conclude this text with two propositions. The first is the suggestion of a research agenda. We suggest developing case studies that compare the political dynamics of municipalities that comply with the legislation, with a residual presence of temporary teachers in the school systems, with municipalities with exorbitant percentages of temporary teachers. The second proposition is a political agenda. The valorization of teachers as a central condition for the quality of public education demands a political project that mobilizes society to understand the place of public servants in constructing the right to education. More than a corporate agenda of the teachers’ unions, but also as part of a union agenda, the overcoming of temporary contracts needs to be part of a project to defend the quality of education as a public service, where dignity in relation to power and continuity in relation to time is what builds the identity of belonging of teachers as public servants committed to a project of education. It is, therefore, a political challenge on the horizon.

Preprint

DOI: https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/preprint/view/3628