Acesso à universidade pública no Amazonas: a efetividade do Sistema de Ingresso Seriado – SIS/UEA em Presidente Figueiredo

Abstract

Access to public higher education in Brazil has remained one of the major challenges within the field of educational policies, especially in regions historically marked by structural inequalities, such as the Amazon. This dissertation, developed within Research Line 1: Education, State, and Society in the Amazon of the Graduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Amazonas (PPGE/UFAM), analyzed the effectiveness of the Sistema de Ingresso Seriado (SIS) — the Serial Admission System — of the State University of Amazonas (UEA) as a public policy for democratizing access to higher education in the municipality of Presidente Figueiredo (AM), during the period from 2022 to 2024. The research was guided by the following central question: To what extent did the SIS/UEA contribute to expanding access to higher education among young people who completed secondary education in Presidente Figueiredo, Amazonas? It also sought to answer the following guiding questions: What are the guidelines and objectives of the SIS/UEA? What is the reach of the SIS/UEA among secondary school students in a public school in Presidente Figueiredo? How has the school supported students’ participation in the SIS/UEA? The methodological approach was qualitative, within a critical and dialectical perspective, supported by theorists such as Saviani, Gadotti, and Lefebvre. For the content analysis (Bardin), institutional documents, reports, and educational data related to the state education network and to programs for university entrance preparation and support were examined, under a critical framework that included authors such as Freire, Santos, and Sguissardi, among others. To address the first research question, documents regarding the UEA’s interiorization process and the implementation of the SIS were analyzed. The second question involved the analysis of public notices, selection results, and enrollment lists for the Presidente Figueiredo campus. For the third question, documents such as the school’s Projeto Político-Pedagógico (PPP), management panels, and action plans from the specified period were examined. The results indicate that, although the SIS represents a policy for democratizing access to public universities, its effectiveness remains limited in the context of Presidente Figueiredo. Students’ performance is affected by factors such as insufficient school infrastructure and the absence of continuous pedagogical policies to prepare them for higher education. Initiatives such as the Projeto Conquistar and Eu na Universidade, promoted by the Amazonas State Department of Education (SEDUC/AM), partially contribute to reducing these inequalities but still lack systemic integration with UEA’s access policies. Moreover, the number of students enrolled and admitted through the SIS/UEA in Presidente Figueiredo during the analyzed years was extremely low, and the courses offered may not align with the interests of the municipality’s youth, raising the need for reflection on the feasibility of introducing new programs that meet local expectations. It is concluded that the democratization of access to public universities in the Presidente Figueiredo requires not only the expansion of seats and admission mechanisms but also the strengthening of basic education and permanent pedagogical support programs capable of ensuring territorial equity and the inclusion of students from the interior.