“There were few businesses in Brazil in the mid-1850s,” says Jesu\u00e9 Graciliano da Silva, a professor at the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina, in Florian\u00f3polis. “They numbered 200 in 1881 and 600 in 1889,” explains the researcher, who studied the history of the institutes as part of his doctoral research at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC).<\/p>\n
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Private Collection of Luisa de Marilac de Castro Silva <\/span><\/a> Cover of the textbook used in the teaching of carton production, taxidermy, and upholsteryPrivate Collection of Luisa de Marilac de Castro Silva <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Under the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, the schools began to be built in January 1910. “For the first time, the Brazilian government took on the mission of promoting professional training in all corners of the country,” says historian Renato Marinho Brand\u00e3o Santos, a professor at the Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte, in Natal. “Any such initiatives created up until then had been exceptional.”<\/p>\n Acre and Rio Grande do Sul were the only states not covered. The former had been incorporated into the national territory only a few years prior, while the latter, since 1906, had been home to the Professional Institute of the School of Engineering of Porto Alegre, later called the Parob\u00e9 Institute. “The state of Rio de Janeiro was included, but not its capital; the apprentice school was built in Campos dos Goytacazes, President Pe\u00e7anha’s hometown\u2014and it still exists today,” Marinho adds.<\/p>\n The activities that took place in these schools were aimed exclusively at boys between 10 and 14 years old. The first decades were difficult; dropout rates were high and very few students concluded their studies, causing the model to be constantly adjusted. One of these adjustments took place in the 1930s, at the beginning of Get\u00falio Vargas’s (1882\u20131954) first presidential term. The country’s industrialization process required that the training of workers be readjusted “to fit the requirements of modern technology.” “The lack of skilled workers and foremen was felt in factories and industries,” explains Francineuma Candido, who started studying the history of Trade Apprentice Schools during her master’s degree.<\/p>\n She claims a July 1934 decree allowed for the expansion of industrial training to other regions of the country. This strategy took shape in 1937, when the Trade Apprentice Schools became Industrial Lyceums. “The institutions left behind their welfare nature and started to invest in the dissemination of industrial training,” explains Candido.<\/p>\n