Expectation and Reality: the Situation of Constructions Sites of the Ministry of Education in Brazil

Abstract

In 2015, the Ministry of Education (MEC) created the Integrated Monitoring and Control System (SIMEC), an operational and management tool that shows the situation of education-related constructions under city hall management on their website. The city hall managers fill the information on the system. Therefore, we wonder if the constructions´ situation pointed out by Simec reflects their real conditions. The research aims to learn the real situation of constructions described on Simec using on-site survey, observation, photographic record, and, whenever possible, using mobile applications like "Tá de Pé " (It's on) from "Transparê ncia Brasil" (NGO) or "Eu Fiscalizo" (I supervise) from Federal General Accounting Office (a.k.a TCU in Brazilian Portuguese acronym) to send the findings. We inspected nineteen construction sites in four cities in the State of Pará . The results indicate that the situation of most of them (11 of 19) does not correspond to the information filled by the public agents in Simec. The situation indicates an absence of internal controls in MEC during the supervision of the constructions sites. Thus, we want to 315 raise awareness about the change that can be made in society by engaged and empowered actors of social control.