PRECARIOUSNESS OF TEACHING WORK: VALUE, CHALLENGES AND THE IMPACT OF PUBLIC POLICIES IN THE STATE OF PERNAMBUCO

Abstract

The article analyzes the precarization of teaching work in the state of Pernambuco, focusing on the impacts of neoliberal policies on the educational space, with a particular emphasis on secondary education. It highlights how such policies tend to obscure and distort actual educational outcomes, using manipulated data to portray positive results while simultaneously promoting intensified workloads, job flexibilization, and the devaluation of the teaching profession through temporary contracts, exhaustive working hours, and an overload of responsibilities. The study examines the influence of managerialist corporate logic in education, marked by the adoption of large-scale assessments, meritocracy, and performance-based bonuses—mechanisms that shift the blame for systemic failures onto teachers, ignoring the inadequate infrastructure of schools. Furthermore, it explores how the Full-Time Education Program (PEI) and the High School Reform reinforce a logic of productivity, undermining pedagogical autonomy and subjecting education to a standardized model. Through a historical analysis, the article reveals the connection between transformations in the world of labor—Taylorism, Fordism, and Toyotism—and reforms in education, treating education as a mere commodity. In this context, Pernambuco’s public policies, aligned with neoliberalism, deepen the precariousness of teaching and negatively impact the quality of education. The article emphasizes the urgent need for public policies that value teachers and ensure dignified working conditions, particularly when education is conceived as a means of emancipation.