FACTORS THAT IMPACT IN THE GROWTH OF DISTANCE LEARNING HIGHER EDUCATION COURSES

Abstract

With the establishment of goals in the National Education Plans of 1998 and 2014 to increase the number of enrollments in higher education courses and with the provision of the distance learning modality in the 1996 Law of Guidelines and Bases, there was a sharp increase in the number of Higher Education Institutions in Brazil, with the consequent increase in the offer of courses and the number of enrollments, mainly in private institutions and distance learning courses. Given this context, the article intends to investigate which factors contributed to the significant growth in the provision of distance higher education courses in private institutions and why the same growth did not occur in public institutions. As research methods, a descriptive, exploratory approach was used, combined with a case study of a private Higher Education Institution. The techniques used were interpretation of data from the Higher Education Census, from 2001 to 2021, and a non-directive interview with the pro-rector of the Institution under study. In private institutions, the following factors were found: legislative incentives, adaptation to the drop in government funding; need to reduce investments and infrastructure; lower monthly fees; expanding the geographic reach of courses; and restructuring of institutions in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. In public institutions, it was found that the growth of distance learning courses was significantly lower than in private institutions, even in the context of the pandemic and there was no restructuring in the sector to include distance learning. In private institutions, the percentage of enrollment in distance learning courses increased from 6% in 2006 to 51% in 2021 and in public institutions it varied from 4% to 8%. The case study corroborates this growing trend in the provision of distance learning courses in private institutions.