Much has been said since the then-new minister of economy, Paulo Guedes, stated that it was necessary to “take a knife” to the S System. However, these discussions have focused almost exclusively on the financial aspects of the system. To truly understand the relevance of the S System to Brazilian society—whose flagship organizations include SENAC (National Service for Commercial Apprenticeship), SESC (Social Service of Commerce), SENAI (National Service for Industrial Apprenticeship), SESI (Social Service of Industry), and SEBRAE (Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service)—it is far more instructive to examine the original motivations behind this vocational education system, the pedagogical and political project that drove its creation, the role of architecture in its facilities to achieve its goals, and its ongoing relevance in the fields of education and culture.
While the promotion of vocational education had been building since the 1920s in Brazil, it only gained economic policy relevance after the Great Depression of 1929, when the country gradually sought to establish domestic industrial production geared toward import substitution. This shift in the country's political-economic orientation demanded a workforce capable of operating industrial technologies. Consequently, training a new type of worker became a fundamental necessity, requiring investment in an extensive pedagogical project that would encompass the whole of Brazilian society.
After more than a decade of debate, the 1937 Constitution finally established an educational system on a new footing, setting common content and formats for the entire country and unifying the disparate programs previously run by individual states. Over the following years, organic laws regulating each of the educational stages were gradually approved, most notably:
.jpg?1547830867 "Architecture, pedagogy, and a project for the country: the S System")
