DROPOUT AND FAILURE IN THE UNDERGRADUATE COURSES OF THE UEA HIGHER NORMAL SCHOOL

CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

Undergraduate education has become widely accessible to the general population through university programs offered by the federal government. However, the increase in demand for higher education courses has also brought to light a worrying problem: the high number of dropouts, retentions, and failures. Focusing specifically on university dropout, an even more particular and problematic phenomenon is dropout in undergraduate courses. The objective of this study is to analyze the factors that lead to dropout and failure of students in undergraduate courses at the Escola Normal Superior (ENS). The methodology adopted is qualitative, with a descriptive approach. The research universe includes undergraduate courses in the in-person modality of the Escola Normal Superior. The partial results indicate that, among a total of 929 students who dropped out between 2015 and 2019, the courses with the highest dropout rates were Bachelor's Degree in Letters - Portuguese Language (25.1%), Geography (24.6%), Biological Sciences (21.2%) and Mathematics (21.0%), while Pedagogy had the lowest dropout rate, at 7.8%. The data reveal the urgent need to implement coordinated actions between managers, teachers and students to promote the permanence of students in the Bachelor's Degree courses at the Escola Normal Superior.