Introduction

The act of commemorating that is present in individual and collective events requires of memory and history the way they are represented. Despite its religious origin, the sense of the word commemoratio that we will use here leads us to reflect about the identity of that which we consciously select and organize to celebrate. And if, on the one hand, this use of the word commemorate undoubtedly contributes to us thinking of this act as being structured in an experience that is proper to those that take part in the act, on the other hand we emphasize that the relationship, not always friendly, between memory and history deserves attention in this context of celebration of the times we choose to remember. At the same time, we also recognize the risk of forgetting other times, especially silent and “unspoken” times. In this sense, we can reaffirm, as ^{Mona Ozouf (1999, p. 31)} did, that “commemorating is a strange activity, which oscillates between present and absent”.

And when we are here in the present time, attempting to unfathom an experience that originated in 1975, when the Postgraduate Program in Education (PPGE) of the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) came into being, and which has extended to the closer and more immediate time of the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020, it is not in any way our intention to rebuild in order to transport to the present day the diverse happenings that have marked 45 years of the PPGE, but rather provoke a reflection about possible meanings that we can retrieve at this time of commemoration.

Studying the historical singularities of the PPGE has enabled us to interrogate the traits of its experience in an attempt to interpret aspects of this heritage common to all those who have taken part in it. The importance that heritage represents does not allow us to commit decontextualizations that isolate those singularities to the point of compromising understanding of their meaning by formulating mythical or idealized narratives. Above all, this is because it is a recollection that is antagonistic to the phenomenon of falling into oblivion. We are urged to problematize the recollection of how it was founded in 1975, and the denouements of its vocation in the decades the followed.

By emphasizing the elements that gave rise to the celebration, and to their relationship with the memory and history of the PPGE, we are highlighting the symbolic value of remembering collectively, accompanied by analyses of the circumstances that the Program has experienced over the course of its existence.

Pierre Nora helps us to understand this relationship by demonstrating that:

[...] memory emerges from a group that it binds together, which means, as Halbwachs put it, that there are as many memories as groups; that memory is, by nature, multiple and unhurried, collective, plural and individualized. History, on the contrary, belongs to everyone and to no one, which gives it a vocation to be universal. Memory is rooted in concrete things, in space, gestures, images, objects. History merely links itself to temporal continuities, evolutions and relationships between things. Memory is absolute while history only knows that which is relative (^{NORA, 1993}, p. 9).

In this regard, the inaugural happening that we are now “remembering” seeks to demonstrate the important of its trajectory, driving forward the continuity of its academic project to forthcoming decades.

In order to facilitate what we have written, we have divided this article into three parts. The first part discusses the early years of the PPGE, passing through a crisis that almost led to the premature end of its activities at the end of the 1990s, to the recognition by the Ministry of Education as the first doctorate in Education course of the State of Paraná in 2002. We then move along the paths that confirm its consolidation, with emphasis on the importance of its expansion through processes of internationalization, between 2002 and 2016. Finally, the last part of this article highlights how its projection has faced new commitments and challenges that have arisen in the last five years (2016-2020).

Part I: The early years: the accomplishment of an idea that became reality (1975-2002)

One of the scenarios forming the setting in which the preparations for the creation of the UFPR Postgraduate Course in Education took place, while still at the Master's Degree level, was the antechambers of the UFPR University Council and its Teaching and Research Council, institutional spaces which debated the preliminary project that resulted in the approval of Resolution No. 07/74 (^{UFPR, 1974}), dated August 22^nd 1974, which authorized the Course to begin. With the start of its activities in 1975, one of the main policies for its projection and strengthening was centered on its recognition by federal bodies external to the university, and the first recognition was formalized by the Federal Council of Education in 1977, through its Opinion No. 3.173/77 (^{BRASIL, 1977}).

In the preliminary project prepared by the commission comprised by Maria Olga Mattar, Zélia Milléo Pavão, Lauro Esmanhoto and Albano Woiski (^{CERVI, 1988}, p. 174), its curricular structure was organized into two Areas of Concentration: Teaching Methodology and Educational Planning. However, following a suggestion made by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel/Ministry of Education (CAPES/MEC), in 1976 they were replaced by a single area: Curriculum (^{GLASER, 1988}, p. 52). And in that context, the synergy that the teaching staff built to strengthen the Master's Degree Course was fundamental, as well described in the article by Anjos & Bufrem:

As a consequence, visiting lecturers specialized in this new area joined the PPGE structure. The curriculum area of concentration began to be influenced by North American conceptual hues, as the recently incorporated specialists had qualified there, both Brazilians who had taken their Ph.D. in the United States, and also four North American doctors in Education. In 1977, the teaching staff was comprised of 25 teachers, 5 of whom were foreigners (^{ANJOS; BUFREM, 2003}, p. 381).

As we can see in Chart 1, studies about Curriculum became peculiar to the history of the early years of the PPGE, firstly because they represent its most long-lived production and, secondly, for having been during almost three decades, either alone or accompanied, that which witnessed the advent of new areas, as well as the extinction or reformulation of others.

The first Master's Degree dissertations of the Postgraduate Course in Education were defended in 1977 and had the following titles: The interferences of Micro-Teaching associated with the Flanders' technique in interactive teacher-student behavior (Lauro da Silva Becker) and Evaluation of school learning (Lilian Anna Wachowicz). Their respective authors, both teachers at the Education Sector, later became teachers on the same Postgraduate Course in which they defended their Masters Degree research. This is, furthermore, one of the aspects of this first stage, i.e., the presence of postgraduate students who were already working as teachers in the many departments of the UFPR, who sought the Postgraduate Course in Education to qualify their work in higher education, as well as seeking to build their capacity in doing research in the field of Education.

The following decade, according to Niroá ^{Glaser (1988)}, was the one in which the UFPR Pedagogy Course celebrated 50 years of existence (1938-1988). Right from the state, this Course marked a series of debates that raised the need for reformulations in the structure of the Education Sector, such as the setting up of an evening Pedagogy course 1981; the first direct elections for the posts of Director and Deputy Director of Education Sector in 1986; the transfer of the Library Science department to the Human Sciences and Arts Sector in 1987 and, in particular, the first large-scale reformulation of the Postgraduate Course curriculum, approved by the University Council Resolution nº 09/83 (^{UFPR, 1983}), which leveraged, in 1984, the approval for its continuity, according to the decision of the Teaching and Research Council referenced in Opinion nº 640/84 (^{UFPR, 1984}).

However, everything achieved by all the efforts made in its first fifteen years were strongly put at risk by mistaken national policies related to the civil service, which seriously threatened PPGE's continuity. Nevertheless, in the 1980s that generation of teachers was instigated to take a further step forward to enhance and expand the PPGE on the Paraná postgraduate program scenario, by setting up a study group with the aimed of defining a proposal for doctoral proposal, according to Ordinance 07/ED (^{UFPR, 1982}), from October 11, 1982, and meet the academic education expectations of Ph.D. researchers in Education in view of a reality that increasingly demanded the public university to provide, academic education, capacity-building and qualification courses for professionals capable of understanding educational phenomena and proposing solutions to their problems.

The memory of this debate was registered by Rejane Cervi, who chaired the study group mentioned above, the members of which were Lilian Wachowicz, Heloísa Lück, Wanda Paranhos and Luiz Busato. The result of their work was presented in the form of 28 arguments in defense of the creation of the Ph.D. course, of which we highlight the following:

7. Conceiving of a Doctorate beyond its structural definition, we indicate here an outline desirable for the Doctorate Program of the Education Sector of the Federal University of Paraná that should take into consideration the basic function of reviewing Brazilian educational practice through research and reflection, which in this case would characterize it by RESEARCH IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION (CERVI, 1984, p. 102).

Before the course was set up, concerns about the criteria it should meet in order to be recognized at different levels did not go unnoticed, such as: (1) its projection in the context of postgraduate programs in Education; (2) what should be its main research foci; (3) how its curricular structure should be organized; and (4) what would be the profile of the public it would cater for.

The last part of this document was built based on the following question: Doctorate Course when? It tabulates the main action strategies for reorganizing the Master's Degree Course, so as to enable a Doctorate Course with a structure that would guarantee its implementation and continuity. In a particularly pertinent manner, the report produced by those teachers presents a set of considerations which, four decades later, continue to be necessary. Let us observe the configuration of their ponderings:

This was the document that officially recorded, for the first time, the vocation and the promising desire to teach and produce doctors in Education at the Federal University of Paraná. However, in the face of countless adversities that stretched to the early 1990s, this process was, unfortunately, delayed and only returned to at the beginning of the 21^st century. The new project presented arguments similar to those previously raised by the 1982 study group, but they were updated to be in line with the new reality of Brazilian postgraduate programs which, in another format, was reestablishing the idea of a Ph.D. course, becoming an important turning point in the direction taking by the History of the PPGE, this being a subject that we will address immediately below.

Part II: The consolidation years: from recognition of the first doctorate course in Education in the State of Paraná to Internationalization (2002-2016)

Following the initial period in which the PPGE began to broaden its trajectory as a reference in teaching and producing Masters in Education, in the 1990s, there was increased discussion about the request for authorization to provide a doctorate course. This process did not occur in isolation from the country's other Postgraduate Programs, as there were conditioning contextual factors that imposed changes in the Programs. According to ^{Kuenzer & Moraes (2005)} and ^{Moraes (2002)}, it was precisely in the second half of the 1990s that the CAPES presented a new evaluation paradigm, which consolidated the conception of postgraduate programs as a privileged locus of research and production of knowledge. In 1998, when concerns abounded about the need to establish new parameters for evaluating postgraduate programs, the CAPES announced new requirements for ensuring that international quality standards be met (^{SEVERINO, 2009}). In this new scenario, the Programs were strongly encouraged/required to adjust their proposals so as to offer doctorate courses.

As a result of these new policies, in the period between 2002 and 2016, a gradual process of scaling up Postgraduate Programs in Brazil took place. Specifically, there was an increase in the number of programs offering doctorate courses. According to GEOCAPES data, in 2002 Brazil had 891 academic postgraduate programs offering both master's degrees and doctorate degrees. By 2016, this number had increased to 2,106 programs in operation, representing an increase of 136% in the number of programs with both master's degrees and doctorate degrees. In the case of the State of Paraná, in 2002 there were 35 academic postgraduate programs offering master's degrees and doctorate degrees, when considering all areas of research. In 2016, this number had increased to 150, representing a 329% increase in the number of postgraduate programs. As such, it can be said that Paraná surpassed the national average and accompanied the rising trend, which was bolstered by CAPES incentive and regulations policies which began in the 1990s.

Within this context it is worth emphasizing that this process of increasing the number of programs occurred in an asymmetrical manner within Brazil. The studies by ^{Cirani, Campanario & Silva (2015)} and by ^{Guimarães, Brito & Santos (2020)} demonstrate that the program development and expansion process was not homogenous in all the country's regions. According to ^{Cirani, Campanario & Silva (2015)}, the more economically developed regions achieved quicker and more intense expansion, as well as having greater financial investment, both in relation to the number of student grants and also in relation to forms of research support. In the case of Paraná, this reality is reaffirmed in regional terms, given that in the state capital economic activities are more developed and that was where the largest number of postgraduate programs and the first postgraduate program in Education emerged. The latter occurred in 2001 at the Federal University of Paraná.

In their analysis of the trajectory of the UFPR PPGE, ^{Anjos & Bufrem (2003)} highlight that in the 1990s, after overcoming certain difficulties and incorporating new teachers into the Program, a process of self-evaluation made it possible to have a more in-depth debate about the PPGE's concept of curriculum and its vocation. This resulted in a new proposal for the curriculum in 1998 and the debates about the creation of the doctorate course intensified. This process of restructuring included diagnosis and mapping of scientific production of the Program's teachers and students with the aim of identifying its characteristics and defining whether or not the existing lines of research would be kept, as well as assessing conditions for creating new lines.

According to data retrieved from the Program's annual reports, at the end of the 1990s institutional efforts were made to fulfill the conditions needed to create the Doctorate course and to move away from centrality on teaching and move towards research, as indicated by the CAPES documents of the time. This process also required an evaluation of the entire trajectory of the PPGE and a reevaluation of the potential to be mobilized in order to carry out the doctorate course academic education activities. According to ^{Silva (2016)}, “the creation of the Doctorate course implied defining a new form of curricular organization”. This reformulation altered the existing academic education structure and redefined the area of concentration and the lines of research.

The proposal for the creation of the Doctorate course presented in 2000 was a landmark in the history of the PPGE, given that, on the one hand, it denoted the maturity of the Program's trajectory and, on the other hand, it comprised a favorable occasion for reviewing academic education practices and consolidating the production of its teachers. According to ^{Anjos & Bufrem (2003)}, the proposal still did not reflect the reality of research in the Education Sector, because of the limitations identified and because of the adjustment arising from the participation of new doctors. Notwithstanding, it is undeniable that it contributed to the consolidation of new academic education possibilities. The new proposal defined that the Program's structure would be comprised of:

An Area of Concentration, three thematic areas, as well as lines of research linked to these areas. The area of concentration was defined as being “Education, Culture and Technology”, while the thematic areas were defined as being: History and Historiography of Education; Education and Work; Culture and Learning-Teaching Processes. The following lines of research were linked to the thematic areas: History and Historiography of Education; Education Policies and Management; Changes in the World of Work and Education; Education, Environment and Society; Cognition, Learning and Human Development; Culture, School, Teaching; and Mathematical Education (^{SILVA, 2016}, p. 238).

Still in the year 2000, the proposal for the doctorate course was approved by the CAPES and, with effect from 2001 the course began to be made available. The first data in relation to its activities were recorded for the purposes of evaluation with effect from January 2001. The first Ph.D. student selection process offered places for the following thematic areas: Political economics of education (8 places); Education and professionalization: policies and processes (2 places); Mathematical education and learning processes (2 places) and Knowledge, culture and school practices (2 places). Of the group of teachers who worked in the PPGE at that time, only one teacher (female) continues working at the doctorate course in 2020.

The first Ph.D. thesis defense took place at the end of 2003 and represented the materialization of a joint effort. The implementation of the doctorate curse in Education at the Federal University of Paraná was important not only from the institutional point of view, but also represented an accomplishment for Curitiba and Paraná society, since it comprised a possibility for educating and producing new doctors in Education for all the State of Paraná's education institutions, both for Higher Education and for Primary and Secondary Education.

Later on, in 2007, supported by the evaluation criteria established by the CAPES and with the increasing maturity of the academic teaching processes resulting from the doctorate course being offered, the need arose to rethink the Program's actions and structural conditions. This tessitura required the efforts of teachers, technical staff and students in order to carry out a process of self-evaluation of each line of research. In particular, the need had arisen to analyze the profile of the teachers' scientific production, the results, the impacts of their research and the potential for offering new places for each of the lines. These efforts resulted in a new proposal for adjustment to the curriculum, with reformulations of the Lines of Research (discontinuing some and creating others) as well as making new disciplines available.

In 2008, besides having finished the adjustments that had been proposed for the curriculum, the Program scored 5 in the evaluation conducted by the CAPES and its internal norms were approved, thus consolidating a new operational perspective to warrant its conditions of functioning and continuity. Within this context, there was a better definition of the credits needed in order to qualify both for the master's degree and for the doctorate degree, as well as realignment between research projects and Program disciplines. This reformulation came into effect for the classes that started following the 2010 student selection process. This period saw the reaffirmation of the centrality of research and academic education for and through research as a structuring pillar of the Program's collective praxis. This is because, as dwelt on by ^{Saviani (2000)}, the foremost objective of stricto sensu postgraduate education is to form researchers, and this is the central element around which it should be organized, considering its two levels, i.e., master's degree and doctorate degree.

As such, according to ^{Silva (2016)}, in 2011 and 2012 there was a period of transition, as the new classes began the master's and Ph.D. courses with a new credit system (18 for the master's course and 36 for the doctorate course). According to the annual reports for this period, it can also be identified that the Program underwent more in-depth restructuring, which in practice might have represented the need to divide the PPGE into two or three new programs. After countless evaluations, this idea was not put into practice, although the lines of research were reorganized.

In 2012, when there was convergence that resulted in the area of concentration being defined as “Education”, the Program had five lines of research, namely: History and Historiography of Education; Education Policies; Work, Technology and Education; Culture, School and Teaching; Cognition, Learning and Human Development. This configuration was kept during the years that followed, until the creation of new lines of research: Diversity, Difference and Social Inequality in Education (2016); Psychological Processes in Educational Settings (2018); Language, Body and Esthetics (2019) and the extinction of the Work, Technology and Education line of research in 2014.

With the aim of overcoming regional asymmetries in Brazil with regard to postgraduate courses, with effect from 2008 the CAPES issued calls for proposals for implementing academic cooperation networks. Call for Proposal Nº 013/2011 (^{CAPES, 2011}) provided for the submission of proposals for Inter-institutional Master's Degree Courses (MINTER) and Inter-institutional Doctorate Degree Courses (DINTER), with the aim of qualifying human resources for Brazil in the areas of socioeconomic-cultural development, scientific-technological development and innovation. This incentive process aimed to expand the number of masters and doctors as permanent staff members of institutions distant from large teaching and research centers, in order to reduce existing regional asymmetries. Within this context, as an important part of the process of consolidating the PPGE, actions were undertaken to put into effect a cooperation proposal involving the provision of a DINTER. This process began in 2011 and required strong mobilization on the part of the Program, in view of the demands that initiative represented. With effect from 2012, in a joint action with the Federal University of Acre, the first DINTER class (2012/2016) began, with a group of 25 Ph.D. students. In 2017, the proposal was resumed, with some adjustments in relation to the first experience, and the second wave began in early 2018 (2018/2022) with a class of 14 Ph.D. students.

By means of the Support Program for State Higher Education Institution Teacher Capacity Building – PCD-IEES (Call for Proposals/Year: 10/2010), another cooperation and solidarity program came into effect in 2011. This time in partnership with the Paraná State University (UNESPAR), more specifically with the União da Vitória State Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Arts (FAFIUV) and the Paranaguá State Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Arts (FAFIPAR), now known as the Paranaguá Campus, four Ph.D. students were trained and qualified to work in these institutions. Based on this initiative the following actions took place: Ph.D. training and qualification of four UNESPAR teachers; publication of scientific articles; presentation of results of research at international congresses and a technical visit to the University of Texas at Austin. These actions strengthened and broadened the Program's relations with other institutions, revealing an ontological vocation for actions of solidarity, nucleation and internationalization.

The result of the evaluation of the 2013/2016 four-year period, published in 2017, was that the Program's score increased from 5 to 6. As such, the PPGE gained the status of an International Program of Excellence. This result consolidated a long trajectory of work and collective efforts on the part of many people to qualify its Teaching and Research processes, as well as highlighting the results obtained by the research conducted by teachers, master's and doctorate students over the years. However, at the same time, this achievement would also imply a series of new challenges to be addressed from then on.

The actions aimed at internationalization that were already being developed at the Program began to stand out within this new context. According to ^{Carvalho & Real (2020)}, in order for postgraduate programs to achieve the level of excellence expected for them to score 6 and 7 for their evaluation, other indicators are added to the evaluation criteria, standing out among which is internationalization, seen as a key challenge, given its relevance for circulation of knowledge, forming human resources and integrating different research actions and investments.

Owing to the scenario that imposed itself because of the score rating the Program achieved, the need arose to indentify and place value on all international cooperation initiatives, characterized by networked research projects, postdoctoral or sandwich Ph.D. courses, undertaking work missions in other countries, being open to visiting lecturers, scaling up scientific cooperation actions with foreign institutions, international publications etc., but above all efforts needed to be made to ensure conditions for these actions to be put into practice and that their results had scientific and social aspects. As such, the approval of the UFPR Internationalization Program by the CAPES (Capes-Print/2018) was an important landmark for the PPGE, as it created better conditions for favoring internationalization processes.

On the other hand, also as an indicator of the PPGE becoming more mature and consolidated, its actions related to affirmative policies increased and qualified its degree of democratization. Through initiatives such as the UFPR Postgrad Pre-Academic Training Affirmation UFPR Project (Pré-Pós), which began in 2013, under the coordination of the Afro-Brazilian Study Group (NEAB-UFPR), a research group linked to the PPGE, a successful process took place within the Postgraduate Equality Program, resulting in increased possibilities of access to postgraduate courses for certain groups of people. Creating places for Black, Indigenous, Quilombola students, trans persons – transsexual, transgender and transvestite –, people with disabilities, deaf people, humanitarian migrants and refugees, and this represented significant progress in the Program's praxis. Worthy of note here is that this process derived from increased research into diversity, difference and social inequality, given that, without broad understanding of theme, it would not have been possible to intervene to minimize these social asymmetries and injustices.

Part III: The years of projection: from internationalization to other contemporary challenges (2016-2020)

One of the biggest challenges for the PPGE following the four-year CAPES evaluation covering the period 2013-2016, was to achieve its consolidation as an International Program of Excellence. Dedication with regard to this aspect can be seen when reading the annual reports kept in the digital archives of the PPGE Coordination secretary's office and sent to the CAPES as part of the documentation intended for performance evaluation. The reports demonstrate the attempt to bring together in one document the wide-ranging and diversified activities carried out by the Program's teachers with different countries. Clearly it is not appropriate to enumerate in this document all the activities carried out by the teachers over those four years, merely reproducing the information contained in the reports. Nevertheless, it is appropriate to indicate activities ranging from participation in research groups and conferences at international events, to making formal agreements and jointly publishing books and dossiers in foreign languages, from spending time abroad as visiting lecturers to taking post-doctoral fellowships and courses of short and long duration. Through these actions the UFPR, with strong PPGE participation, became apt to establish important partnerships with important Higher Education institutions in Latin American countries, such as Argentina, Chile and Mexico; in European countries, such as Germany, France and Portugal; and in other countries such as Morocco, India, United States, Israel and Australia, to name but a few.

When reading the reports, it was possible to observe that the path to internationalization was establishing itself as something progressive, developing rapidly, and that the change in level, resulting from the latest four-year evaluation, would be just a logical consequence, as long as there were no significant disparities or adverse interferences caused by abrupt changes in the evaluation items and parameters. Notwithstanding, a determining factor for the continuity of the strengthening of these international research ties was the creation, between 2017 and 2018, of the Institutional Internationalization Program, known as Capes-Print. Through specific calls for proposals, this program established resources for funding working missions abroad, supporting projects and study grants both abroad and in Brazil (doctorate, post-doctorate and visiting lecturers). Through articulations made by its Research and Postgraduate Studies Deanery, the UFPR was successful in its first application to the Capes-Print call for proposals for project selection. Permanent PPGE teachers took part in preparing some of the initial projects contained in the proposal: Production and Circulation of Knowledge; Public Policies and Social Changes; Power Relations; Asymmetries and Human Rights; SmartMinds: Internationalization of the Humanities in the Digital Public Sphere; and Space, Society and Development.

The opportunity for internationalization, understood from a perspective of exchanges and sandwich doctorate courses, also extended itself as an opportunity for students being able make applications to specific calls for proposals. Dependency on study grants is however a condition for the majority of those who apply or demonstrate interest in doing part of their research abroad. Beyond financial questions, arising from different social realities that are not uncommon to the reality of Brazilian academic life, there is the huge challenge of students acquiring linguistic abilities, considering the requirements principally for TOEFL tests (Test of English as a Foreign Language), given the characteristics of secondary and higher education, which do not always privilege foreign languages in a satisfactory manner in their curricula. In view of this, the University and the PPGE coordination teams have taken steps to make tools available for building the capacity of its postgraduate students, suggesting actions to make targeted courses and workshops available, made possible through partnerships within and outside the UFPR. These capacity-building activities also aim to develop the broader habit of reading in other languages, adding to the research conducted in the institution the possibility of knowledge and understanding of contents not published in the Portuguese language.

Internationalization is characterized as a qualitative indicator of growth of the PPGE, but also indicates quantitative growth with regard to the number of teachers and students. Making sure its underlying mechanisms are working well has been fundamental for the PPGE to be able to fly higher. In the last four years, the Program's academic staff has grown annually thanks to the vacancy application notices prepared by the Permanent Evaluation Commission, so that there are now almost one hundred teachers working at the Program, between permanent and collaborating staff. As a consequence of this, the number of master's degree and Ph.D. students has also increased so that by the end of the 2017-2020 four-year period there were over 500 students. Its administration, in turn, has become larger and more complex, requiring not only a committed Coordination body, but also engaged technical staff, in order to achieve good performance of routines common to the Program, such as: organization of the selection process, enrolment, classroom distribution, scheduling examining committees, financial control, among many other direct and indirect activities required to meet the needs of teachers, students and the institution's internal and external community.

The track record of part of the administrative routine of the PPGE can be found by reading the minutes of the meetings of its Collegiate Board, comprised of members of its coordinating body, representatives of its lines of research and student representatives. The minutes are available in the Program's digital archives, and through them it is possible to gain a notion of the dimension of demands on the administrative routine, ranging from approval of preparatory and final examining committee decisions, whether ad referendum or not, to the approval of sufficiency examinations and requests for use of credits. The minutes include agendas for the discussion of more sensitive or exceptional themes, in which the democratic nature of the proceedings stands out, reflecting the respect and care given to differing positions and opinions, this being a common characteristic of a significantly wide-ranging staff of teachers and lines of research of distinct natures. During 2018, the PPGE reformulated its internal norms, and published the most recent version in March the following year. It reformulated its curriculum, updating the names of disciplines, syllabuses and bibliographies, in line with the new characteristics defined for the Program.

It is worthy of note that the PPGE also underwent a change with regard to its physical installations. Ever since its creation the program was located at the Chancellery Campus, in the Dom Pedro I building; but in June 2018, it moved along with part of the Education Sector to the Rebouças Campus, about 1.5 km away, where it now operates in the Teixeira Soares building, in facilities loaned to the UFPR by the former Federal Railway Network S.A. The move has enabled the creation of new spaces for the secretary's office, classrooms, laboratories and part of the teachers' offices. As with any physical removal, the collaboration of teachers, technical staff and students was needed in order to adapt to the new setting, which, little by little, underwent improvements in accordance with the needs imposed by routines relating to lessons, supervision, research and administrative services. If, on the one hand, there have been natural disruptions resulting from the move; on the other hand, there have been significant gains, such as larger and more appropriate spaces that meet the demands of an expanding Program. The changes in relation to the place and to the use of physical spaces have had online repercussions, such as the reformulation of the PPGE website – standardized in part by the Research Deanery – and the creation of other communication and publicity spaces, such as social networks, for publicizing activities, as well as video platforms, for disseminating contents.

If, on the one hand, aspects related to the consolidation and projection of the PPGE involve the actions and initiatives of the Program itself, both individual and collective, on the other hand consideration must be given to the political instability Brazil has been going through in the last four years. On the federal level, we underwent a presidential impeachment process in August 2016, preceded by a very turbulent election process the year before. The government that held office between August 2016 and December 2018, brought many uncertainties and new challenges for the country's education policies, among other issues, but also had repercussions on higher education organization and funding policies, including postgraduate education. As for the current federal administration that took office in January 2019, we will leave criticisms to its national and international repercussions, while what interests us in particular are the changes brought about in the CAPES and, above all, changes to its evaluation area. As mentioned above, reading the reports prepared by the PPGE for the CAPES indicates its natural projection towards internationalization and, consequently, to its consolidation on this level – except in the event of adverse changes. The reduction in postgraduate study grants, in addition to the example of the substantial reduction in areas of knowledge, can be understood as a reflection of a policy that is indifferent to the problems of Brazilian postgraduate courses, especially postgraduate courses in Education, reflecting directly in students' everyday lives and research production. Despite this, the PPGE continues to believe collectively in democracy as the guiding element of its actions. In 2019, for the first time the Program held a selection process with affirmative actions involving Black people, quilombolas, Indigenous people, transgender persons, people with disabilities, deaf people and humanitarian migrants and refugees. This fact added value and consolidated even more the values on which the program's history has been based, indicating clarity in its political perspectives and delimiting its territories with regard to its understanding of society.

In a history that continues to be written, a big challenge was still to be forthcoming. In March 2020, the PPGE closed its on-site doors at the University because of the COVID-19 pandemic which arrived in Brazil and required rapid adaptations. As in other institutions, there were several online possibilities, such as remote communication and, later on, remote examining committee sessions. Adaptation to and familiarization with this new reality led to classes being given via electronic conference platforms and the use of other tools offered by contemporary technologies, without losing perception of reality with regard to access to digital culture on the part of the academic community. The PPGE also turned to remote selection of new master's degree and Ph.D. students, in a specific format, and, despite the adversities, there were over a thousand applicants which, in turn, required even greater operational organization in order to achieve effective and successful selection.

In a period of great adversities, it is appropriate to highlight the PPGE's ability to project itself and seek its consolidation in accordance with its characteristics and with the metrics defined by the funding agencies, including its ability to reinvent itself, to stand up to difficulties, to uphold democracy and not lose its humanitarian sense and sense of solidarity. If these items had been part of the evaluation criteria, they certainly would have been well rated.

Final considerations

Oscillation between presence and absence that leads us to commemoration of a date or a specific cycle, as indicated by ^{Mona Ozouf (1999, p. 31)}, crosses the perception of a PPGE that is present, contemporary, in continuous activity, that not just symbolizes, but which is present as a physical and institutional space and as an effective environment in which the actions of its academic community take place. The vestiges from years that have passed, such as administrative documents kept in its archives, add contours to the narrative redrawn by those who experienced and lived though its different moments. The origins of the PPGE are documented in the minutes of the UFPR University Council and Teaching and Research Council, which indicate its approval in a specific resolution published on August 22^nd 1974 (^{UFPR, 1974}), and effectively began operating with effect from the following year. In terms of time, we are coming close to half a century of existence, a cycle drawing to a close, which is cause for commemorations, and the consequent celebration of absence and presence.

Beyond the records of the authorization of its coming into being and the records of the discussions on the creation of the Doctorate course in the 1990s, which became a reality in the 2000s, we also have the reflection on the impact that the PPGE has had on society through the masters and doctors it has produced over all these years. There have been immeasurable individual transformations in professional careers, clearly, but also on a wider level, materialized through the qualifications of its alumni replicated in public and private teaching networks, in administrative Education posts at different levels, among other possibilities of the knowledge produced at the PPGE, engendered by the product of postgraduate course lessons and in research that has resulted in master's degree dissertations and Ph.D. theses, reaching spaces beyond the walls of the university, reaching those who in their everyday activities are very far away from it.

PPGE becoming mature has also resignified and increased its responsibilities, ranging from the scaling up and diversification of its lines of research to the increase in its teaching staff, involvement in cooperation activities such as the DINTER, with effect from 2012, the quest for and the consolidation of CAPES rating 6 and investment in the UFPR Internationalization Program, with effect from 2018. And beyond the administrative challenges, there are also human challenges, such as managing personal relationships and awareness raising as to possible interferences arising from diverse social problems. And often, it is always worth recalling, following a path the direction of which was still not clear. In this sense, we would like to thank the teachers who took on this challenge and coordinated the Program at different times along its history which is still being made, and whose names are shown in the following chart.

We would like to thank all the professors who have been part of the PPGE throughout the almost half century of its existence, offering courses, guiding master's and doctoral research, and developing work in its centers, laboratories, and research groups. The perception of the Program's growth occurs, fundamentally, by the actions and collective effort. Our gratitude also goes to the technical staff for their importance in guaranteeing the necessary fluidity of the administrative routine, being the main ones responsible for attending to the public, for the bureaucratic procedures, for supporting the filling out of several databases, for organizing the selection processes and for writing minutes and other documents that are indispensable for the daily routine of the secretariat. We thank all those who, during the last 45 years, have been responsible for the technical-administrative organization of the PPGE, to whom we name through the current composition of the secretariat team, composed of Sandra Maciel de Lima, Patrícia Kussaba, Cinthia Marloch and Wellen Laynes. A final thanks also goes to the many interns who have collaborated with the administration routine.

Aware of the limitations of this chronological and narrative portrait, we return to the affirmation at the beginning of this text attributed to ^{Pierre Nora (1993, p. 9)}, that history belongs to everyone and to no one. We have covered, in a few lines, selected fragments of temporal continuities in chronological order, based on documents and memories from the 1970s to the present day. Inevitably we will produce an absolute discourse, beyond a relative one, and consequently we will be subject to possible missing information, which by the fact of not being mentioned, unintentionally, is not there. The history of the PPGE is not exclusive, and for this reason it is everyone's. It will continue to be built collectively, (re)appropriated at different times and by different generations and rewritten as many times as necessary. A history that does not end when the narrative ends, but which traverses time. Finally, it inscribes itself and unfolds itself freely in the memory of those who have lived it: a multiple and plural history.