Escola rural e alfabetização: Uberlândia 1936 a 1946

Abstract

The subject of this search is the illiteracy combat in Uberlandia city through rural schools between 1936 and 1946. The problem was delimited in order to evidence rural schools goals in educate local population. As the main aims of this search we try to analyse the relation between National Education Cruzade and rural education in Uberlandia. The main objectives are: learn about rural education contribuitions as a way to educate country population; to verify the National Education Cruzade projects influence; to analyse the possible conexions between this crusade and local politics projects and then, to comprehend rural primary school teacher s profile. To cover these objectives we use as historic sources Rural School Meeting Minutes, Advisory Board Minutesm, newspapers, rural student s notebooks, photos and rural former teachers interviews. The results that we get allow us to say that illiteracy combat was defended in national levels and local authorities agreed with this objective, as an example, these authorities reproduced the Cruzade speech about educate local population needing, which had as consequence an increase number os rural schools in this city. However, the interviewed former teachers who worked in rural schools said that they never heard or get to know about National Education Cruzade. We also learned through this investigation that most rural teachers was not graduated in teacher s school. The wage paid by the City Council was enough to maintain a modest life and it was one of the lowest wage paid comparing to the rest of the nation. Also, local public government did not offer training courses for teachers nor provide conditions to the teachers study in others cities.