THE NEW HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM IN BRAZIL AND HOLISTIC HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: BETWEEN COMPETENCY-BASED PEDAGOGY AND THE RIGHT TO KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

The reform of Brazilian secondary education, instituted by Law No. 13.415/2017 and regulated by the National Common Curricular Base and the National Curricular Guidelines for Secondary Education, promoted a structural reconfiguration of the curriculum by establishing competency-based pedagogy and the flexibility of learning pathways as organizing principles. Although presented as a strategy to promote integral human development and youth empowerment, this reorganization raises significant tensions regarding the guarantee of the right to knowledge and the democratization of education. This article critically analyzes the New Secondary Education, focusing on its epistemological, curricular, and social implications. This is a qualitative research, of a bibliographic and documentary nature, grounded in the sociology of education and critical curriculum theory, based on authors such as Saviani, Libâneo, Bourdieu, Bernstein, Young, Apple, Sacristán, and Freire. It is argued that the centrality attributed to competencies reconfigures the role of scientific knowledge in the school curriculum, producing a structural tension between curricular flexibility and educational justice. It is concluded that, in contexts marked by structural inequalities, the realization of integral human formation depends on guaranteeing access to systematized scientific knowledge, qualified pedagogical mediation, and the affirmation of curricular justice as a guiding principle of educational policies.