The first class of the Pronatec MEI Management Course: integrating them in the formal labor market as individual micro-entrepreneurs. Photo: Ubirajara Machado/MDS
Brasilia, 24 December 2015 – The professional training courses offered by the National Program for Access to Technical Education and Employment (Pronatec), aimed at integrating low-income people in the formal labor market, also seek to boost entrepreneurship.
Beneficiaries of the Bolsa Familia Program and the Unified Registry for Social Programs can now participate in a Pronatec entrepreneurship management training course. The course lasts for two months and aims to develop skills in the areas of business, finance and financial education, marketing, planning, innovation, and citizenship. The federal government´s goal is to train 100,000 beneficiaries of social programs as Individual Micro-entrepreneurs (MEI) by 2018.
The Pronatec MEI Management Course is an initiative of the Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS), the Brazilian Service of Support for Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae) and the Bahia State Government, which have jointly developed a training methodology especially customized to meet the requirements of the low-income target audience. The course is targeted at the productive inclusion of people who already have a small business, by integrating them in the formal labor market as individual micro-entrepreneurs.
According to Luiz Müller, Director of the Productive Inclusion in Urban Areas of the MDS, “With Pronatec, we have been able to build on the skills that students already possess and to systematize their knowledge. This course enables people to improve their chances of entering the labor market. We also encourage people to formalize their employment status, which also acts as an inducement to them to access more rights.”
MDS data show that between 2012 and 2014, 1.7 million social program beneficiaries enrolled in Pronatec courses, with an 87% completion rate. Around 370,000 social beneficiaries succeeded in getting their first formal job after completing a course under the program, and 70,000 secured formalized status as individual micro-entrepreneurs.
Müller explains that in the case of the Pronatec courses specifically aimed at training manpower for formal jobs, the municipal social assistance authorities refer course graduates either to the National Employment System (Sine) or to a local employment system or agency. In the case of entrepreneurs, the same authorities direct students to Sebrae to be registered as formal workers, or to a local government agency responsible for dealing with micro-entrepreneurs.
In the words of the Director, “To operationalize this entire referral and monitoring process, the MDS created the Acessuas Trabalho program, which serves to identify local demands for labor, to refer students to the courses, to monitor training progress and to steer course graduates towards productive inclusion.”
For 2016, the MDS is preparing to launch a new technical assistance approach to complement the entrepreneurship management course. Müller asserts that in this respect “Entrepreneurs will be monitored by consultants for one year in order to assist them to establish themselves in the market with whatever they produce.”
Pilot project
Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, was selected in August 2015 as the venue for the very first Pronatec MEI Management Course. In addition to the MDS, Sebrae and the Bahia State Government, support was also provided by the Ministry of Education (MEC) and the municipal sub-secretariats of Labor and Employment (SMATE) and Social Assistance (SMAAS).
Ubirajara Machado/MDS
According to Ana Wolbert, the productive inclusion manager of SMAAS, Belo Horizonte was chosen for its efficient running of Pronatec courses. She is proud to say that “We joined forces to work with an efficient model and we were able to complete the course with only one drop-out. The class stuck to the proposed pilot project and continues to get together at Sebrae every week.”
The class of 25 students consisted of the beneficiaries of social programs that already ran small businesses. A further requirement of enrollment was that students had completed the 4th year of elementary schooling, that they had attended one Pronatec course, and that they were formally registered as individual micro-entrepreneurs (MEI).