THE DEFINITION OF DROPOUT AND ITS IMPLICATIONS (LIMITS) FOR HIGHER EDUCATION POLICIES

ABSTRACT: Public policies are based on diagnoses of reality that, with some frequency, use social indicators and administrative records. The success of public action and of diagnostic tools depends, among other things, on an adequate definition of the phenomenon to be addressed. This article aims to problematize the current and official definition of dropout in higher education used by INEP/MEC, based on its guiding document "Methodology for Calculating Flow Indicators in Higher Education" of 2017, and point out its limits and implications. To achieve success, a documentary research was mobilized, bifurcated in methods of document analysis for government texts and data analysis for the Census of Higher Education. For the presentation of the reflections, it was opted, initially, to point out the importance dropout has in several public policies for higher education. Later on, there is the actual analysis of the subject of this article. The results achieved signal the presence of limits in the ability to express the phenomenon and, consequently, to instrumentalize public policies appropriate to the public problem, especially because the current definition does not deal with the motivations, ignores the re-entries by considering the dropout as an act always terminative, does not commit to a longitudinal analysis and does not adequately dialogue with the purposes of higher education established by the Law of Directives and Bases.