Mariclei PRZYLEPA, Maria Alice de Miranda ARANDA, Ana Paula Moreira de SOUSA and Andréa Jara Peralta FREITAS.
RPGE – Política e Gestão Educacional, Araraquara, v. 27, n. 00, e023061, 2023. e-ISSN: 1519-9029
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22633/rpge.v27i00.18545 5
Council comes from the Latin Consilium. Consilium comes from the verb
consulo/consulere, meaning both to listen to someone and to submit
something to someone's deliberation after a reflected, prudent, and common-
sense consideration. It is, therefore, a verb whose meanings postulate a two-
way street: listen and be heard. Reciprocal hearing involves seeing and being
seen, and, therefore, when a Council participates in the destinies of a society
or parts thereof, the verb consulere itself already contains a principle of
publicity. (CURY, 2006, p. 47, our translation).
The councils have a public character, they are organizations of individuals, the plural
voice of civil society, spaces for citizenship, collective defense, and a sense of belonging.
Therefore, in this sense, the ECs constitute
[...] collegiate of educators (consuls or magistrates - in the sense that they are
representatives, defenders of educational citizenship, endowed with the power
of deliberation to do so), which speaks publicly to the government on behalf
of society, through opinions or decisions, in defense of the educational rights
of citizenship, based on “reflected, prudent and common-sense
consideration”. (BRASIL, 2004a, p. 24, our translation).
Thus, ECs inserted in education systems become instruments of collegiate management
and represent the will of civil society in the development of public policies, educational
legislation, and government decisions.
Each council has its duties but generally performs the following functions, according to
Brazil (2004a): Deliberative - the commission has decision-making power on issues of
executive action; Consultative - advises the government and society through opinions,
interpreting legislation and proposing measures and standards, concerning improving
education; Fiscal - has legal competence to monitor compliance with standards and legitimacy
in approving or not approving government actions, and proposing changes; Mobilizing -
mediating movement between government and society, which should encourage strategies of
social participation and practical commitment by everyone to the quality of education.
Finally, it is pertinent to highlight the nature and historical phases of CEs, as they make
it possible to understand their meaning in the management of Brazilian education. According
to Brazil (2004a), from 1842 until the first decade of the 20th century, there were Public
Instruction Councils, made up of public employees and directors of educational organizations,
whose competence was to define subjects and teaching methods, the development of school
standards, monitoring the attitude of educators, among others.
For Bordignon (2017), the ECs were gradually configured as State agencies, but their
technical, historical basis presented resistance to this configuration and affected their role as
social representatives in dialogues with State governments. The author highlights that the