Many young people have to choose between taking a break from work or studying. Program transformed into structural trap. Sitting on the bus, returning from school, I heard a conversation between students: “I didn’t do the activity, I didn’t get a grade. I was late from work yesterday. I was either sleeping or studying. I needed to rest.”
These words resonated with me, revealing a reality that many prefer to ignore: the Jovem Aprendiz program, in practice, represents an educational delay. Within the framework of the Apprenticeship Act (10,097/2000), the proposal aims to integrate study and practice, to offer the possibility of access to a first job and to qualify the workforce – as is the case with the dual education system in Germany.
In theory, the Young Apprentice should guarantee technical-vocational training for young people aged 14 to 24 and people with special needs, and encourage them to stay in school. For example, a student’s working day cannot exceed six hours per day. The workload must take into account the time required for studies.
In practice, however, we observe a mechanism that often imposes on young people a double and exhausting routine, dividing their energy between employment and studies, and often depriving them of the educational purpose that gave them birth.
Should I choose between working or studying?
The Young Apprentice’s discourse on opportunity and responsibility masks a reality of fatigue, escape and abandonment.
Many young people have to choose between taking a break from work or devoting themselves to studies. The program, intended to be a bridge between education and professional experience, has become a structural trap.
Mariana*, my colleague, lives this routine. He wakes up at six in the morning, goes to school and leaves at 11:25. At 1 p.m. he starts working as a young apprentice and doesn’t return home until 7 p.m. She takes long bus rides, arrives at class exhausted and often falls asleep during explanations. “People say it’s good, but I feel like I’m wasting my youth in an office. I don’t know what to do. I’m very tired, but I also want to have my money to buy my own things. I’m treated like nothing in this place, even though I do a lot. I’m paid little,” she told the Chronicle.
In this context, the Young Apprentice Program acts as an aggravating factor: it institutionalizes fatigue, normalizing the idea that it is acceptable for an adolescent to undergo a routine that deprives him of learning. At the same time, after an exhausting working day, the program participant is still forced to maintain good academic performance.
Companies, under the pretext of “training new professionals”, exploit young apprentices as cheap labor, thereby reducing costs and increasing profits. For them, the young person is not seen as a student in training, but as a replaceable part.
Brazil does not need tired young people or productive zombies: it needs conscious and critical young people who have the time to learn.
Lack of oversight weakens program
It is nevertheless undeniable that the program is essential for many low-income young people, who see it as the only way to support their household, contribute to family expenses or guarantee their own food. It is not a question of ignoring this reality; it would be unfair and insensitive to do so.
However, even in these cases, the lack of supervision transforms the Young Apprentice into a routine of exhaustion: these young people spend more time working than studying and find themselves deprived of the right to training that the program should guarantee. Work, which should complement learning, begins to replace it.
The problem lies not in the program itself, but in the lack of real control over how it works. On paper, the Young Apprentice requires the participant to maintain a school connection and benefit from training support, but, in practice, this is rarely verified.
We must therefore strengthen supervision: it is the duty of the State, businesses and educational establishments to ensure that young people actually study, that their path is compatible with learning and that their right to education is not negotiated in the name of productivity.
Only in this way can the program keep its promises: to be a bridge and not a prison.
*fictitious name
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Vozes da Educação is a weekly column written by young people from Safeguarda, a social volunteering program that helps public school students in Brazil enter university. The founder of the program, Vinícius De Andrade, and students assisted by Safeguarda in all states of the federation take turns writing the texts. Follow the Safeguarda profile on Instagram at @salvaguarda1.
This text was written by student Camila Gabriel Augusto and reflects the opinion of the author, not necessarily that of DW.
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