Distance Learning in higher Education in Brazil: an over view

The constant technological advances have changed the ways people relate, communicate, play and learn. In this scenario, Distance Education - educational modality in Brazil for over a century - has gained strength and has recreated its features and its ways to make distance education in this country, bringing great promises for the democratization of education. Distance Education courses have outnumbered the Presence modality in higher education, however not all educational institutions that have chosen to offer distance learning courses via the Internet are fully committed to the quality of education provided. Based on this fact and due to expansion of the type of education, the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) considered it essential to define the principles, guidelines and criteria that are benchmarks of quality for institutions offering distance education courses in higher education. From these didactic and pedagogical guidelines higher education institutions must create their Pedagogical Political Projects in order to offer distance college courses.