Avaliação de implementação da Educação Superior a Distância: o caso da Secretaria de Educação a Distância da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte SEDIS/UFRN

The considerable expansion of Distance Education registered in recent years in Brazil raises the importance of debate about how the implementation of this policy has been happening so that formulators and implementers make better informed decisions, maximizing results, identifying successes and overcoming bottlenecks. This study aims to evaluate the implementation process of Distance Education policy by Secretary of Distance Education of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. For this, we sought to use an evaluation proposal consistent with this policy, and came to the one developed by Sonia Draibe (2001), which suggests an analysis called anatomy of evaluation general process. To achieve the objectives, we made a qualitative research, case study type, using documentary research and semi-structured interviews with three groups of subjects who belong to the policy: managers, technicians and beneficiaries. It was concluded that: the implementation process needs a open contact channel between the management and technicians and beneficiaries; the lack of clarity in the dissemination of information between technicians produces noises that affects the outcomes; the absence of dissemination of internal and external actions contributes to the perpetuation of prejudice in relation to Distance Education; using selection criteria based on competence and merit contributes to form a team of skilled technicians to perform their function within the policy; an institution that do not enable technicians generates gaps that possibly will turn into policy implementation failures; all subjects involved in politics need internal evaluations to contribute to improvements in the implementation process, however, a gap is opened between the subjects if there is no socialization of results; the existence of an internal structure that manipulates financial resources and balances the budget from different maintainer programs is essencial; the consortium between IES and municipalities in presential support poles are bottlenecks in the process, since beneficiaries are exposed to inconsistency and lack of commitment of these local municipalities

Qualidade de vida na perspectiva de idosos institucionalizados no Município de Natal - RN

A descriptive and exploratory Study, quantitative in nature, with the aim to assess the Quality of Life (QL) of the elderly leaving in a Long Residence Institution (LRI) according to their own perception. It was conducted in six Public Institutions of Long Residence for Seniors, in the municipality of Natal - RN, in the period of July to August 2007. The data was collected using two structured interview forms: the first, containing questions about socio-demographic aspects and the second - the WHOQUOL-OLD, prepared by the World Health Organization to assess elderly s quality of life. The reference population was 266 old persons, and a random sample, of 43, being 28 women and 15 men, who account for 30%. The results indicated there is a predominance of older women (65.1%) and the average age is 76.6 years; the predominant religion is the Catholic - 44.2% and, 32.6% are unmarried without children. As for schooling and precedence, 41.9% are illiterate and 67.4% come from the rural area. The time of residency in the institution goes between 1 to 5 years for 69.8% of the elderly, 37.2% of them residing in the institution for not having another option. Most elderly informed using medicines. 51.3% said they are taking anti-hypertensive. As for the other aspects of QL: sensory aspects, autonomy, past, present and future activities, social participation, death and dying and intimacy, the WHOQOL-OLD, showed an average total score of 52.9% (scale of 0 to 100), with a tendency to neutrality, denoting that the elderly, in this study, evaluated their QL as neither satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Of all the facets of the instrument of QL, the sensory facet secured the highest average scores (68,1%), showing that the elderly are "happy" in the situation in which they find themselves, not showing significant disabilities. The facet of autonomy, which refers to the independence and the ability to make decisions on their own life, received the lowest average scores (40.7%), showing the dissatisfaction of the elderly on this aspect. The evaluation of the elderly on other facets were: social participation (48.2%); activities past, present and future (44.6%) and intimacy (50.6%), all perceived as neither unsatisfactory or satisfactory. On the item death and dying, the elderly people declared themselves satisfied, with average score of 65.5%. The analysis of the reliability of the WHOQOL-OLD by the Cronbach Alpha showed 0.57, considering the 24 items that cover the instrument, showing regular internal reliability of the instrument, in our reality. The result is probably due to differences between the regions south and east and the broader sociocultural diversity. We believe that the elderly in this study, tended to realize their QL as neutral, considering it as neither unsatisfactory or satisfactory, result likely related to the resignation with the destine, characterized, at the time, by the finitude of life, feeling very common among elderly, or perhaps, even for an accommodation, often accompanied by discouragement, present in the daily life of many of them