Municipal boards and educational management: the continuing education distance and its movements

Through scientific research in development, this article is based on distance extension actions of continuing education of a specific public program, the National Program of Training Municipal Counselors of Education (Pro-Council). This program targets a policy of democratization of education management and qualification on work of municipal counselors of education as well as education technicians in relation to educational practices, legislation, financing mechanisms, transfer and control of the use of funds of education in order to enable a good performance of the Municipal Boards of Education (MCE) in their socio-educational institutions. In this context, the objective is recognizing and analyzing the continuing education impacts developed under Pro-Council/Federal University of Santa Maria about aspects as competence and commitment of ex-attendants at the Municipal Councils of Education as a democratic collective bodies. The study is developed under a quantitative and qualitative approach, using the production of semi-open questionnaires data applied to counselors and technicians. From this, we stress the growing interest of the Boards of Education and the Departments of Education to capacitate their counselors and technicians; the establishment and implementation of new Municipal Boards of Education in Rio Grande do Sul State/Brazil; the relationship between the professional exercise and political and theoretical reflection; and so on. Whereas the Municipal Boards of Education are required to consolidate the democratic management, it is very important the training of individuals involved and especially establishing dialogic processes with social demands of each municipality, mainly, the educational ones, in the sense of [re] building the public policies for basic education in a responsible and participatory way.