DIRETRIZES CURRICULARES NACIONAIS PARA O ENSINO SUPERIOR: A LÓGICA DAS COMPETÊNCIAS EM FOCO

National curriculum guidelines in Brazilian higher education replaced the minimum curricula, instituted in times of military rule. The guidelines, unlike the minimum curricula, aim to guide institutions in the construction of pedagogical projects without, however, subtracting from the institutions their autonomy to decide what to teach, how and when. The guidelines establish purposes: set of skills and competencies desired for graduates of each of the courses. That said, this study, of a qualitative, documentary nature, proposed to (i) inventory and draw a chronological line of all courses that approved its curricular guidelines and, therefore, broke with the minimum curricula and (ii) analyze the guidelines national curricula of nine courses that, in the period from 2001 to 2020, have already approved a second edition of national curriculum guidelines. Results point to significant advances in the process of overcoming the minimum curriculum model, based on content, to that of guidelines, based on competences. However, at the same time, as a typical historical process it is, there are still recalcitrant elements in this process, once the model of competences, far beyond being a mere pedagogical artifact, it is a new educational paradigm.