He who ignores the past is doomed to repeat it: distortions of postgraduate evaluation in Brazil based on Capes’ history

Abstract This paper aims to highlight some distortions in the Capes evaluation system, particularly in the area of Administration, Accounting and Tourism, starting from the history of Capes in Brazil. Through this analysis, it was possible to conclude that the change in the assignment of grades from 1 to 5 to 1 to 7 in the 1990s was not followed by a change in the Capes evaluation system, which still uses scores from 1 to 5 to evaluate the programs in each of their requirements. Such distortion becomes incompatible with an evaluation system that is summative and classificatory. As a consequence, productivity is confused with productivism, methodological rigor for the evaluation of programs is jeopardized, and the educational character of a formative evaluation is abandoned.