Overview of physical therapy graduation courses in Brazil: current scenario

Abstract Introduction: After the regulation of Physical Therapy (PT) in 1969, there were only six undergraduate courses in Brazil. In the 90s, higher education underwent major expansion in all professions and the same occurred to PT, with consequent increase in the number of professionals in the labor market and privatization of education. Objective: To describe the current situation of PT courses in Brazil offered by Higher Education Institutions (IES). Methods: The data for the region, academic organization, situation, period, school system, administrative category, vacancies, course hours and duration were obtained from the website of the Ministry of Education (MEC) and refer to the year of 2013. The descriptive analyzes of central tendency, dispersion and percentage were performed in Stata 9®. Results: From the total of 550 IES registered in the MEC, 281 (51%) were in the Southeast. Regarding the academic organization, 341 (62%) corresponded to universities and 483 (87.9%) of the IES were private. Of the courses, 521 (94.7%) are active, the predominant school system was the semiannual (91.5%) and 438 were part-time. The average vacancies authorized by the IES were 129 ± 102, with at least 44,900 vacancies available in the country. Of the courses, 75% had 4,000 hours of duration with the minimum of seven semesters and a maximum of fourteen. Conclusion: The data show a higher offer of PT courses in the private sector compared to the public. There was a progressive concentration of courses and vacancies in the Southeast, especially in São Paulo.