Pé-de-meia licenciaturas: between the gaps of merit and the ideal of teacher education

Abstract

This article focuses on the Pé-de-Meia Licenciaturas, a brazilian scholarship created in 2025 to encourage enrollment, retention, and completion of undergraduate teaching degrees in Brazil. Our goal was to analyze the constraints and internal contradictions embedded in the program’s design and implementation, demonstrating how the centrality accorded to academic merit generates structural weaknesses that require critical scrutiny and policy refinement. We examined official program documents, promotional media, and the list of selected students. Based on the analysis of its timid results, we argue that despite the valid justification of encouraging high-performing students to enroll in undergraduate courses, the program fails to consider: a) affirmative action policies in Higher Education; b) the importance of the Pedagogy course in initial schooling; c) distance learning courses, second undergraduate courses and pedagogical training; d) students who are already studying undergraduate courses and those who were not approved via SISU. Given the prospects for the continuity of the program and the current state of teacher training, we reinforce the need for it to be accompanied by structural measures that value teaching work.