Introduction

Created by Law 12,513, of October 26, 2011, Pronatec - Programa Nacional de Acesso ao Ensino Técnico e Emprego (National Program of Access to Technical Education and Employment) was designed to offer free professional courses, promoting the expansion, internalization and democratization of the offer of professional and technological education in the country, encouraging the expansion of educational opportunities and professional training of a public in need of these offers (^{Ministry of Education and Culture [MEC], 2016}).

However, few analyzes were carried out in order to interweave the large numbers related to the investment in the program with the effective impact of the vocational training offered for the occupation of formal posts in the same period.

We are aware that the implementation of this program acts to materialize actions that meet the 'desires' present in governmental discourses and of the representatives of the economic sectors, in which the relation between the shortage of skilled labor in Brazil and the negative implications of this lack for the country's economic and technological development.

In this context, the present study is the result of a research that was proposed to analyze the supply of Pronatec courses, in the period from 2011 to 2015, considering the argument (the justification) for an existing deficiency of skilled labor to meet the requirements of the economic productive sectors, especially in the municipality of Cascavel, Paraná state.

In order to support this reflection, the data related to the courses offered and the needs identified by the economic and demand sectors, expressed by the data of MTE, CAGED, IBGE, IPARDS, RAIS, CNI, FIEP, SEED and the Workers' Agency. This analysis supported the construction of an overview of the offer of Vocational Education, in which the representation of demand for Pronatec courses and offered jobs was constructed. In this scenario, it was possible to verify if the courses meet the requirements of the productive sectors, and if there was a significant increase in the occupancy rates of the formal posts through the referrals made by the Workers’ Agency in the municipality of Cascavel, Paraná state.

Although it was launched in 2011, Pronatec is a public policy resulting from a series of actions initiated in the previous decade, at the time of the launch of the PNE, Plano Nacional de Educação (National Education Plan), for the period 2001-2010. These actions are aimed at the 'negotiations' concerning the discourse of skilled labor shortages in Brazil, given by representatives of the economic sectors and endorsed by the rulers, who, historically, point to this condition as one of the main obstacles to economic development of the country.

^{Feres (2015}) considers that the PNE aimed to consolidate a systemic vision of education, verified in the setting of goals and directions for public policies in the area of education that converged to the link of professional education to the Sistema Educacional Nacional (National Education System), in opposition to the fragmentation observed in the Leis de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação (National Education Guidelines and Framework Law) of 1996.

In 2007, the Federal Government presented the Plano de Metas Compromisso Todos pela Educação (Target Plan All for Education Commitment), in which the Union's technical and financial assistance actions were linked to states and municipalities that fulfilled the quality goals stipulated in the Plano de Ações Articuladas - PAR (Joint Action Plan).

Sequentially, in 2008, the Law establishing the Institutos Federais de Educação Tecnológica - IFETS (Federal Institutes of Technology Education), was approved, allowing the formation of a network that includes, in addition to the Federal Institutes, other institutions offering vocational education at all levels. This subsidized the creation of the Programa Brasil Profissionalizado (Brazil Professionalized Program); Rede e-Tec Brasil (e-Tec Brazil Network) for distance learning; of the Acordo de Gratuidade com o Sistema S (Gratuity Agreement with the S System); and the creation of the Sistema Nacional de Informações da Educação Profissional e Tecnológica - Sistec (National Information System for Vocational and Technological Education).

In the analysis of ^{Feres (2015}), while Brazil Professionalized Program aimed at structuring and expanding the physical structure of state professional and technological education networks, the e-Tec Network sought to strengthen the offer of professional distance learning. With respect to the Gratuity Agreement, S System has undertaken to apply, as of 2014, two thirds of the resources coming from the compulsory to offer technical courses of medium level, professional qualification or continued initial training, to the low-income public.

This was the structuring that preceded the launch of Pronatec, which through its own initiatives or interconnected with other programs, encompasses a series of subprograms, projects and actions of technical and financial assistance.

The Bolsa Formação⁴ is the program's greatest impact initiative because it promotes the payment of scholarships to both public and private schools, so that they could defray the cost of the courses (payment of teachers, supplies, teaching materials and school kit), and student assistance to students (food and transportation costs). In addition to the financial contribution, its breadth also refers to the role of offering partners - Federal Institutes, Federal and State University, state and district networks of professional education, S System and public foundations of schools that offer technical courses, and applicants - of 15 Ministries and all State and District Departments of Education, mobilizers of Centros de Referência em Assistência Social - Cras (Centers of Reference in Social Assistance) Municipal Department of Tourism, Culture, Employment, among others.

The courses offered by this educational network provided, as a priority, to the: high school students and the education of young and adults of the public network; workers; beneficiaries, holders and dependents of federal income transfer programs; disabled people; ethnic communities; adolescents and young people in compliance with socio-educational measures; high school graduates from the public network or from private institutions, provided that they have studied as a full scholarship holder.

Between 2011 and 2014, the program registered more than 6 million enrollments in the country (Table 1). The analysis of data from the ^{Secretaria de Educação Profissional e Tecnológica do Ministério da Educação - SETEC/MEC (2013)} (Department of Professional and Technological Education of the Ministry of Education), regarding enrollments in each of the initiatives grouped by Pronatec, demonstrates the expressiveness of the numbers present in the Formação Inicial Continuada (Initial and Continuing Training), a modality of the scholarships offered by the S System.

While the State Networks registered 5% enrollments and the Federal Network 15%, the S System Agreement initiative remained with 80%, divided into 43% SENAI, 30% SENAC, SENAT 4% and SENAR 3%. The most benefited public was the Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à Fome - MDS (Ministry of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger), with 40.9% of enrollments, followed by the Secretaria de Educação e Cultura - SEDUC (Ministry of Education and Culture), with 20.2%. Online enrollments, without specific applicant, accounted for 23.6% of enrollments. The Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego - MTE (Ministry of Labor and Employment) 5.1%, and the sum of other applicants recorded a 10.6% enrollment in the period (^{SETEC/MEC, 2013}).

Also in July 2014, then President Dilma Rousseff launched Pronatec 2.0 with the promise of offering 12 million places in 220 technical courses and in 646 qualification courses starting in 2015 (^{Brasil Sorridente and Pronatec, 2014}). However, even with the announcement that Pronatec would become effective as a State Program in 2015, cuts in the government budget - 9.5 billion in the Ministry of Education alone - caused a sharp drop in the number of vacancies announced. From three million, the forecast came to one million, with only 288,000 being effected, that is, a reduction of more than 60% of vacancies. Even so, in total, enrollment and investment numbers were expressive, as shown in Table 2.

In short, between 2011 and 2015, the Federal Government implemented a series of actions aimed at 'expanding' the offer of professional education through 'Pronatec' to 'cure the shortage of skilled labor', investing more than 15 billion in the Program, which generated around 6,304,594 enrollments.

However, have such investments had a relative impact on the employment of formal jobs, which, according to the economic sector discourses, are not filled by lack of skilled labor? How is the follow up of the graduates of these courses to map their insertion in the job market?

Although there is no official or unofficial data that Pronatec's offer, in the breadth of its articulations, did or did not provide the public's access to it in the formal job market, increasing employability and improving quality of life in care the first objectives of the program, some measures were initiated in 2013 by the MEC. These measures included the elaboration of the Professional Education Map developed by the Centro de Gestão e Estudos Estratégicos - CGEE (Center for Management and Strategic Studies); the development of a system of evaluation of technical courses developed by the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Anísio Teixeira - INPE (National Institute of Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira and another system, for the evaluation of graduates of technical courses and FIC, prepared by the Instituto de Pesquisas Econômicas Aplicadas - IPEA (Institute of Applied Economic Research). In 2015, the CGEE presented the Mapa da Educação Profissional e Tecnológica do Brasil (Map of Professional and Technological Education of Brazil), exposing data for subsidies of the EPT offer in the country. However, the proposals of the evaluation systems, so far, did not materialize (^{SETEC/MEC, 2013}).

In the Final Report of the Map developed by ^{CGEE (2015}b), the expansion of vocational education offered by Pronatec occurred in the proportion of 29% of vacancies for technical courses and 71% for FIC courses, evidencing a professional education policy that favors short courses. The study considers that this is a point of attention, since this offer is, as a priority, to a low education population, with difficulty of returning to the school banks, relegating, in the background, the medium-level vocational training.

In order to verify the extent to which Pronatec has contributed as a public policy to expand the offer of vocational education, and if this offer has met the requirements of the economic sectors, it is necessary to read about the job market and the perspectives of vacancies offered in the various professional areas, in the short and medium term, as pointed out by ^{Feres (2015}).

For this analysis, the data related to job supply in Cascavel - PR, collected in indicators of CAGED, IPARDS, IBGE and MTE, were compared with the courses offered by Pronatec. The relationship between the offer of vocational training and the vacancies offered by the Workers' Agency in the municipality shows if there is coherence in this process, that is, if the offer of courses is in keeping with the demand signaled.

The Labor Agency data were taken as a starting point for this analysis, considering that, in addition to being candidates for the Pronatec courses, mobilizing and directing the beneficiaries of the program, they also manage the recruitment, selection and placement of workers in the job market, under the aegis of the Divisão de Intermediação de Mão de Obra - DIM (Labor Intermediation Division). The services offered by the Workers’ Agency are free and are intended to inform and guide workers and employers, making the mediation between both (^{Secretaria da Justiça, Trabalho e Direitos Humanos [SEJU], 2015}).

For the study, the vacancy profile described in the announcements of the Workers' Agency in Cascavel was analyzed, with the profile of the candidates registered and placed. The data are related to the year 2011 and were extracted from the electronic portal of the Secretaria da Justiça, Trabalho e Direitos humanos - SEJU (Department of Justice, Labor and Human Rights), covering the segments of intermediation by economic activity, combined profile of the employees, combined profile of the candidates and combined profile of requirement of vacancies.

The stratification of the evolution of referrals to jobs carried out by the Agency between 2011 and 2015 shows an oscillation in vacancies, with significant decreases accompanying the national movement in the same period (Table 3).

The data show that the greatest demand for vacancies is concentrated in the sectors of trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, manufacturing industry, construction, administrative activities, accommodation/food, transportation and storage (Table 4).

The main point of attention is that the number of employees is always below the job vacancies, and even more discrepant if we consider the referrals to fill the occupations, as evidenced in Table 5. This permanence of open positions, even though there is a large number of people referred to the offers, is also noticed in the national data.

The reasons for not occupying these vacancies remain obscure, since the relationship between the profile required for the occupation of the vacancy and the profile of the candidates referred, in the great majority, are compatible in levels of schooling. According to SEJU (2015) data, 74.79% of the vacancies did not require proof of experience in the work portfolio (Table 6).

It is worrying that job vacancies remain idle, even with a significant number of candidates presenting the minimum requirements for filling it. It should also be pointed out that, if almost 80% of the companies do not indicate the need for professional experience registered in the portfolio, what characterizes the labor force so scarce in the job market? If there is a need for vocational training, possibly the short courses, the focus of investment of Pronatec, may not meet the expectations of professional training desired by the productive sectors. However, it should be noted that courses of 160 hours form a professional able to start the activities in the trade. It would be up to the companies to take part in the training of these workers, since waiting for the 'ready' professional, with the complete competency package, does not seem to exist.

^{Araujo and Borges (2000}) analyze that the structural difficulties of the job market are masked by the imposition of qualification as a condition of employability. This concept exempts the government from responsibility for the development and adoption of public policies for this purpose, exempts companies from responsibility in the formation of the worker and relegates to the individual any burden for their insertion in the job market.

This political bias of action in the educational sphere is in line with the principles of international organizations. In the perception of ^{World Bank (2010}), education acts in a compensatory way on the poverty situation caused by economic adjustments. It is also pointed out as a fundamental mechanism in promoting a new pattern of capital accumulation, considering that, according to the official discourses, it is through education that social development is promoted, increased social cohesion and better opportunities for the population that , capable, you can enjoy 'right' policies (^{Deitos, & Lara, 2016}).

The provision of qualification in the scope of Pronatec, regardless of the structural needs of the labor market, is highly praised by the World Bank. In the document, Achieving World Class Education in Brazil: The Next Agenda, published in 2010, the organization praises educational policies and reforms implemented by the governments of the last 15 years, among they, Pronatec, and continue to dictate the perspectives and paths of the educational policies of its hegemonic model of education, society and State.

This World Bank neoliberal discourse, in ^{Cruz's perspective (2003}), recovers and reformulates Human Capital Theory⁵ by pointing out a supposed dependence relationship between education and economic and social development, in which individual performance is overvalued as a determinant of the condition of each in society. From this point of view, it transposes the logic of the market into education, and elects free competition as fundamental for guaranteeing the efficiency and quality of the educational services provided.

^{Mota Junior and Maués (2014}) bring to the fore the economist perspective of education when considering that the educational system must play three primary roles, being: the development of workforce skills to sustain economic growth; the contribution to the reduction of poverty and inequality, seeking the offer of educational opportunity for all; and turn to the transformation of spending in education into educational outcomes. This conception is imbued with the Human Capital Theory by arguing that international research shows that Human Capital, when considered as the average schooling of the labor force, acts as a critical element for economic growth.

^{Frigotto (2009}) warns against the false character of the legacy of economism, when it places education as a (human) capital engine of development and overcoming inequality between nations and between classes or social groups, without, however, modifying power relations and class (the circumstances) that produce inequality.

It is perceived that it is not a policy for education for all, but a social policy aimed at the immediate formation of labor in the perspective of employability⁶, without discussing the issue of employment, emphasizing the neoliberal practices based on the non-intervener State, encouraging the individuality and discourse of equal opportunities.

^{Lima (2012}) warns us that the launch of Pronatec promoted the continuity of the policy of precariousness and adaptation of secondary technical training to the interests of capital, because, as analyzed,

PRONATEC is much more than the adaptation of PROUNI (University for All Program, which transfers public resources to private institutions through scholarships) for technical education. Law 12,513 / 2011 changed the settings of the FAT (Worker Support Fund), unemployment insurance, FIES (Higher Education Student Fund) and income transfer programs. Pronatec is the embodiment of UNESCO's recommendations that Latin American governments should use the 'S' System model for vocational training (Own translation)⁷.

One of the objectives of professional education, at all levels, refers to the development of a professional ability for the individual to act as a citizen within a socioeconomic context, generating income. However, even after being qualified, it faces a selective labor market, which demands more and more knowledge, skills and competences, which adds productivity gains to the company, without necessarily reflecting better wages for workers.

The technological leap, with a new stage of industrial development envisaged for Brazil, will only be possible with the change of the current model rooted in low-skilled work that generates high profits for the companies. It would be more pertinent a project that saw the importance of investment in skilled labor, with less greedy and more distributed profits, enabling equity and social insertion, without the need for compensatory policies of almost no return (^{CGEE, 2015b}).

Conclusion

The data analyzed show that the offer of vocational education in the sphere of Pronatec had no impact on the supply of the formal jobs offered. In the period of analysis, vacancies remained open even with a large demand for (qualified) candidates submitted.

In Brazil, there were 9.4 million enrollments. In Cascavel, only between 2011 and 2015, 7 thousand people were trained. In the same period, 8 to 12 thousand jobs were offered by the Workers' Agency, and only an average of 3,680 of these were actually occupied. That is, more than 50% remained open, although 74% of them did not require professional experience.

This leads us to the understanding that the Program is characterized as a social policy for employability, with immediate training of labor, without discussing the issue of employment, strengthening the neoliberal precepts that encourage individuality and the discourse of equal opportunities.

Although advertised as a major investment in Vocational Education, as a lever of the country's economic and social development, most of the resources were invested in initial and continuing training courses, which serves the sectors of low quality, low technological content, and low wages, running counter to emerging production models on the world stage, contributing to long-term unemployment.