Federal University of Sergipe
The Federal University of Sergipe is a Brazilian public institution based in Sergipe, with campi sprawling through the cities of São Cristóvão, Aracaju, Itabaiana, Laranjeiras and Lagarto. Founded in 1967 by the junction of the State's existing colleges, it became its second university and its first, and so far only, public one. As traditionally seen in Brazilian educational system, in which state-banked universities tend to offer better quality of education, it became the State's most reputable and disputed higher education institution, ranking among the country's 40 best universities and Latin America's top 200.
History
Sergipe had government permission for higher education schools since the 1920s, but the first institutions of such type - the Faculdade de Ciências Econômicas and the Escola de Química - would commence activities only in 1948 as independent public colleges. They were followed by the Faculdade de Direito, Faculdade Católica de Filosofia, Escola de Serviço Social and the Faculdade de Ciências Médicas. By then, the State had fulfilled the minimum number of institutions to form a university, which was commissioned in 1963 and approved in 1967 by law decree. Though recognized as a university, the UFS had no proper campus and the departments of its courses were scattered throughout the State's capital, Aracaju.By 1978, the university had grown to include 23 full-time courses, which resulted in an overwhelming bureaucracy and threats of inefficiency due the institution's decentralized structure. In this very year, attempts to organize the chaotic model, which had similar cases in several other States, were made by the Ministério da Educação, whose national guidelines forced universities across the country to unify their courses in "centres". Initially, four centres were created for the UFS: Centro de Ciências Exatas e Tecnologia, Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde, Centro de Ciências Sociais Applicadas e Centro de Educação and Ciências Humanas.
Following national education reforms, the university began a gradual transference to a new, unified campus in the city of São Cristóvão throughout the 1980s. In 1987, the fully transferred UFS inaugurated its new campus, which would eventually become the institution's headquarters. During the 1990s, following the foundation of 45 new undergraduate courses, there was an emphasis in technology and academic specialization: the Pólo de Novas Tecnologias was founded, bringing 10 new courses with it, and the Programa de Qualificação Docente was formed, graduating over 1,000 highly apt teachers for the State's public education system in the decade. Also in this period, the university began its first master degree programs through the Department of Post-Graduation and Research. Independent scientific thinking was promoted by the Programa de Iniciação Científica, a partnership between UFS and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.
Since 2004, the UFS faced a new and drastic cycle of expansion based in the government's new social policies, combining the rise of new courses, enlargement of the curricula, reform and expansion of infrastructure. The most notable of such reforms were the foundation of new campi in Itabaiana and Laranjeiras, which were added to the already existing campi in Aracaju and Lagarto. Though generally praised for its scope, the so-called Expansion Program suffers criticisms ranging from its execution, permeated by bureaucracy and enormous personnel costs, to its efficiency. As of 2012, the university had a total of 107 courses divided in 6 centres.
Admissions
Like most Brazilian universities, admissions to UFS undergraduate courses are made solely by passing the yearly exam popularly known as vestibular. Until 2011, the university independently commissioned the test from Fundação Carlos Chagas and performed it in four consecutive days. Criticism to such evaluation system is wide and longstanding in the country's history, mostly focusing on the inability to evaluate the student's personality, also ignoring his extracurricular enterprises, the excessive memorization required by the questions and unfairness towards lower-class students, who are unable to pay for better education.Like most exams in other public universities, the questions present no particular level of difficulty; the outstanding dispute for vacancies, however, is the decisive factor for selection, given the process' competitive nature. In 2010, a total of 28,340 students competed for 4,950 vacancies. Differently from admission systems seen in United States, in which the student chooses its line of study usually one year after his matriculation, enrollment to a course is prior the exam's execution, and the student will compete for vacancies only in the chosen course. That makes for highly different competitive ratios ranging from course to course, with some being most disputed and some having a worryingly low demand. In order to avoid such discrepancies and most of the problems from the traditional exam, since 2012 UFS has adopted the ENEM as its only form of admission, raising some worries based on the exam's unstable administration.
In 2007, the university adhered to the controversial racial quota system, destining half of its vacancies to public school black students. The decision was added to the ongoing national controversy questioning the system's constitutionality. In 2012, Brazil's Supreme Court declared the quota system legal, and it was made into law after President Dilma Rousseff's sanction.
Academics
Primary and Secondary Education
Aside from its higher education curricula, the UFS also ministers primary and secondary education through the Colégio de Aplicação, comprising 550 students: 210 primary and 240 secondary or high-schoolers. The school was founded in 1959 as part of the Sergipe College of Philosophy and was incorporated to the university in 1968. It was transferred to São Cristóvão Campus in 1981, but remained without a proper building until 1994.The CODAP is the university's take on non-higher public education, a historically deficient system in Brazil. Aside from the usual curriculum, the school invests in extension programs and the Projects for Scientific Initiation. Its academic staff comprises 30 permanent and 7 temporary teachers, plus 18 employees in the administrative staff. The school ranks as the State's and one of the country's best public schools: in 2012, it had the country's seventh and the State's best primary public education according to the "Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica". In both 2010 and 2011, the ENEM ranked its secondary education as the State's sixth best, being the only public school among the top 10.
Undergraduate and post-graduation
The UFS is a mid-sized, non-residential university. As of the second semester of 2011, it had a body of 30,832 students divided in 107 undergraduate, 38 master and 8 doctorate courses. The nation's post-graduation quality is evaluated by its Ministry of Education through the "Concept System", which gives a course a grade from 0 to 5. As of 2012, 26 courses were given the "concept" 3, 16 received "concept" 4 and only one had a perfect 5. Also in this period, only 4% of all students were undergoing post-graduation.Residency system is decentralized and coordinated by joint efforts between the university and the State's government. While UFS does possess some residential blocks, the vast majority of the residents lives in third-part houses rented with their financial aid. Only unemployed, lower-class students living far from their respective campi are eligible to the system.
Following the expansion program since 2004, the university sought to reach neighboring cities by constructing the campi of Itabaiana and Laranjeiras and rebuilding the campus of Lagarto. The Laranjeiras Campus, built in "Quarteirão dos Trapiches", the city's historical site, specializes in Liberal Arts and Urban Studies. The new Lagarto Campus, under construction since 2009, is a modern-architecture facility that will house 8 medicine courses. The majority of undergrad students are located in the university's main campus, São Cristóvão, with the other campi housing 2,419, 1,543, 823 and 293 students.
Rankings
The UFS is a relatively new institution, with less than five decades of existence. Despite its recent origins and the notorious problems faced by Brazilian public education, the university achieved great notoriety in Brazilian higher education, ranking 39 among the institutions evaluated by Folha's University Ranking in the country, 2012, and among Latin America`s top 200 universities by QS World in 2011.UFS Law School is recognized as one of the country's finest, ranking among the four best results in the OAB Exam from 2009 to 2012. In 2012, the Law School received the OAB Quality Seal, given only to those with consistently exceptional performance in the exam.
The university's closest competitor is the private-based UNIT, founded 5 years earlier, in 1962. Under the university's control are various key programs for the State's culture and sports: the Museu de Arqueologia de Xingó, with over 55,000 archaeological findings from the Xingó region, the CULTART and the "Programa UFS em Movimento", which promotes 28 types of sportive and physical extracurricular activities, to mention some.