Abstract
This article analyzes the role and concept of lato sensu graduate courses, looking at them in context, and according to regulatory frameworks. It highlights the academic role assigned to educational institutions and managers, reflecting carefully on political, administrative and educational roles of the coordinators of graduate courses, with special attention to lato sensu courses. Its methodology has used the recommendations, normative resolutions and decrees issued by the Ministry of Education (MEC) and the National Council of Education, since the 1960s. It also examines literature on the critical analysis of course normative standards, and reflects on the reduced funding of higher education in the 1990s, which has led to a significant increase in private institutions, and especially to the increase in lato sensu courses, including corporate courses offered by public institutions. This and the lack of regulation of course offers bring risks to the quality of those courses. Course coordinators and managers are responsible for guaranteeing course quality by encouraging the interlocution between theory and practice, the articulation between content and the world of work, and mainly the formative dimension of students, who should be educated to exercise ethics and citizenship in any social dimension they might be involved with in the future.
Course educational management; Regulation of lato sensu graduate courses; Course coordinator role