THE NEW HIGH SCHOOL MODEL AND STUDENT COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: THE 2017 REFORM AND THE 2024 REVISION IN THE SANTA CATARINA STATE SCHOOL SYSTEM

Abstract

This article analyzes the contributions and the limits of the New Upper Secondary Education model to student cognitive development, focusing on the state public school system of Santa Catarina between 2017 and 2025. The general objective was to understand how the curricular reorganization established by Law n. 13.415 of 2017, and partially revised by Law n. 14.945 of 2024, affected the conditions under which young people in Santa Catarina appropriate school knowledge. The research is basic in nature, qualitative in approach and documentary in design, supported by systematic bibliographic dialogue and by the complementary use of official educational indicators. The set of documents gathered laws, resolutions, ordinances, curricular guidelines, institutional materials produced by the State Department of Education of Santa Catarina and public data released by federal agencies. The analysis followed a critical-textual reading of the policies, combined with thematic content analysis, taking curriculum, youth, comprehensive education and cognitive development as its categories. The results show that the separation between basic general education and formative pathways reduced the time devoted to the systematic study of the areas of knowledge and made the offer of pathways dependent on the operational capacity of each school unit, which turned the promise of choice into administrative allocation in smaller schools. It was also found that the legislative revision of 2024 restored the workload of basic general education without reestablishing the material teaching conditions that this stage requires, which keeps the dispute over the purpose of upper secondary education open. It is concluded that the reform reconfigured curricular governance more than it democratized access to knowledge, which is why the defense of a robust, public and socially grounded general education remains central to the realization of the right to education.