The Interiorization of Public Higher Education in Santana do Araguaia, Brazil

Abstract

As part of the interiorization program of public higher education in Brazil, and following the dismemberment of the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), the Federal University of South and Southeast of Pará (Unifesspa) was created in 2013 in the Eastern Amazon. In 2014, the Araguaia Engineering Institute (IEA) of Unifesspa was set up in the city of Santana of Araguaia, providing a licentiate degree course in Mathematics. The bachelor’s degree in civil engineering was added in 2018, and architecture and urbanism in 2019. Santana of Araguaia is a relatively new municipality, located in the state of Pará, away from the main centralities and between the borders of agribusiness and the Amazon. Our research analyzed the evolution of the first years of this university campus in the municipal and regional contexts and reports the development indexes of IEA and Santana do Araguaia. It is observed that there are numerous challenges to improving this asymmetry; however, the interiorization of public higher education does have the potential to overcome some of this inequality, stimulate the development, and guarantee the right to public, free, and quality higher education.