Evaluating the extension practices at the Federal University of Viçosa - Rio Paranaíba campus: FORPROEX guidelines to perceptions of the actors involved

Abstract

The education offering have grown significantly in Brazil, especially after the 90’s. At this context, public universities assume an important role regarding the support tripod teaching, research and extension. The objective of this paper was to evaluate the perception of teachers and entrepreneurs about the extension activities in Federal University of Viçosa - Rio Paranaíba Campus, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The evaluation had as parameters the guidelines for university extension actions proposed by FORPROEX (Brazilian Public Universities Extension Pro-Rectors Forum) agreed in 2012. The research was quantitative and qualitative, aiming to describe the profile of the respondents (15 teachers and 20 entrepreneurs) and the significance of extension for them, as well as the compliance of extension activities with the objectives of FORPROEX. The guidelines measurement was based on a Likert scale of 1 to 7 points. About the results, is important to note that only in the guideline Inseparability Teaching-Research-Extension occurred significant differences of averages between teachers and entrepreneurs, but, for the others it was not observed the same behavior. The guideline Impact and Social Transformation was the one with the lowest performance in the entrepreneurs evaluation, while the one presented the higher performance was the Inseparability Teaching-Research-Extension, also in the evaluation of entrepreneurs. Among the contributions of this paper, it should be highlighted the results for the evaluation of actions, policies and guidelines relating to extension activities, practiced by the University, to a better alignment of interests and expectations between the University and the local community.