Aeronautics Technological Institute
Encyclopedia
The Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA) or Aeronautical Institute of Technology is an institution of higher education and advanced research with emphasis in aerospace science and technology maintained by the Brazilian Federal Government with the support of the Brazilian Air Force
. It is located in São José dos Campos
, Brazil
. ITA is rated as one of the top and most prestigious engineering schools in Brazil, accepting little more than 100 students per year at its undergraduate courses. The school's admission exams for its undergraduate courses (called vestibular
in Brazil) are considered by the media to be the most difficult and most competitive in the country, and take place annually in over 25 cities throughout Brazil.
It is one of four institutes that encompass the Brazilian General Command for Aerospace Technology (CTA)
, having its facilities, along with its laboratories and R&D centers, inside the campus
of CTA
. ITA is often mistakenly considered to be a military institution, because of its location, but it is civilian in nature, with a vast majority of civilian teachers, directors and students. The Air Force does help maintain the institution, though, and in exchange uses it for the training of its engineers.
The institution was created in 1950, being responsible and contributing in a great extent for the research and development of the aerospace and defense sectors in Brazil, including the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research - INPE, Embraer
and Avibrás
.
ITA offers regular 5-year engineering
undergraduate courses (Bachelor's of Engineering) and graduate
programs including master's and doctorate degrees. All undergraduate students are granted full scholarships and board during entire five-year period. Complete residential facilities are offered to the students inside the campus, at a minimal cost. The college is known for being rigorous, demanding focus and a great effort from the students.
Casimiro Montenegro Filho
, who was then a Coronel. Montenegro was an Air Force pilot and pioneer who had also received a degree in Engineering. The idea of building a school of excellence in Aeronautics Engineering and related fields came as the first step towards building a strong aeronautics industry in Brazil.
A commission was created in 1946 in order to organize the Technical Center of Aeronautics (in Portuguese Centro Técnico de Aeronáutica, or CTA), a sprawling facility that was later renamed, but kept the same acronym. ITA was to be the first institution in CTA, which would later harbor other aerospace related institutes.
Marshal Casimiro Montenegro was very passionate and idealist, and was committed to creating the best school that could possibly be created. He visited the most renowned Aeronautics Engineering schools in the US at the time, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and the Wright Field (home of the Air Force Institute of Technology
). There he hired MIT's professor Richard Harbert Smith
to help develop a plan for such a school, which was dubbed "The Smith Plan". Prof. Smith would later become ITA's first rector
.
Montenegro hired renowned foreign professors and experts from various parts of the world to teach at ITA, the majority of them from MIT, influenced by Prof. Smith
. At a given time of its history, ITA had teachers from more than 20 different nationalities in its faculty, an impressive number, considering it had (and still has) a faculty of little more than 100 teachers. Nowadays the overwhelming majority of the teachers are Brazil
ians, many of whom have graduated from ITA themselves.
A book by Tércio Pacitti
, a former ITA rector, mentions that Montenegro went to great lengths in order to be able to hire and maintain a 'super-star' faculty. Their pay was considerably high, a requirement to convince them to move to an unknown and poor country, as was Brazil in the '50s. He had, many times, to conceal their actual pay from his superiors in the Air Force, disguising it as other forms of expenditures.
At the same time the team of professors brought to Brazil by Montenegro started to lecture in the Army Technical School (EsTE, nowadays IME, Instituto Militar de Engenharia
), in Rio de Janeiro
, CTA's and ITA's facilities began to be built in the city of São José dos Campos
. This city was small and its economy was mainly rural, but Casimiro and his fellows predicted that, due to its location (between Brazil's biggest cities, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo) and geography, it was a good place to be the birth of the aeronautics industry in Brazil. They turned out to be right, since about only 20 years later a company called EMBRAER
, nowadays the third largest commercial jet manufacturer in the world, was started there, created and run by ITA's alumni.
In 1950 ITA's basic facilities were finished and its first students moved there from Rio, to finish the courses they had started in the Army's facilities. Despite the fact ITA was run and maintained mostly by the Air Force, most of its students were civilians. That was a key point in the "Smith Plan", that ITA should form civilian engineers, to aid in the development of the Brazilian industry, specially the aeronautical one. Over the years a larger percentage of ITA's revenues began to come directly from the government. Nowadays the Air Force contributes with an amount that is somewhat proportional to the number of military students at ITA.
) or keep their status as civilians, as members of the reserve, when they apply. About 20% of the students admitted in the institute follow the military career, starting to receive paychecks and wearing uniforms at the beginning of their 3rd year of school. Most of the students follow a civilian career, pursuing jobs in the market in Brazil or abroad, as they graduate.
During their first year at ITA, the undergraduate students are required to attend a military preparation course once a week, and receive monthly cost-of-living allowances for it during this period. For the male students it also fulfills their obligatory military service, which all male citizens in Brazil are required to attend (although the majority of them are dismissed at presentation).
. ITA's vestibular is composed of 5 exams, each on one of the following subjects: Mathematics
, Physics
, Chemistry
, Portuguese
and English
. The English exam is only classificatory, meaning the candidates are only required to achieve a minimum result in order to be qualified. The other four exams are eliminatory and competitive, meaning the applicants with the higher average grade (the four tests have equal weights) will be selected.
Students are selected based exclusively on their grades in the exam, and will be distributed in the 5 available Engineering courses according to number of seats available for each course and the list of course preferences the student fills at the time of his application.
The subjects of the exams are covered in much greater depth and difficulty than the exams from other colleges and universities in Brazil, including all the top universities such as UNESP
, UNICAMP, UFSC or USP
, what makes it a necessity for the student to be prepared specifically for ITA's entrance exam. That usually demands an extra year of study or more (students often take the test 3 or 4 years before being selected). Another Engineering college, maintained by the Army, Instituto Militar de Engenharia
(Military Institute of Engineering - IME), have exams of similar difficulty, but with a smaller amount of candidates. Candidates usually prepare for both exams, from ITA and IME, in a way that the majority of the candidates selected by ITA ends up being selected by IME as well. The vast majority of the candidates nowadays chooses to study at ITA, when approved in both schools, due to the civilian nature of ITA and its better renown in the market.
Based on the average grade obtained by the students course, every school was given a grade from 'A' to 'E' for each of its courses, with 'A' being the best. ITA was the only institution in Brazil to have obtained only 'A's in all the years of Provão, for all of its courses. The Provão results are somewhat misleading, though, as the grades are given by ordering the average grades of the schools in a list and giving the label 'A' to a certain predefined number of schools, and so on. Therefore, two schools that were given the grade 'A' can have substantially different scores, and that is usually the case. The actual grades for each school were not announced by the government, but a list with the highest average grades in 2003 "leaked" and was published by the national magazine Veja
.
The published list showed that the courses of Electronic and Computer Engineering at ITA, which both took the exam of Electrical Engineering, attained the highest average grade of the whole Provão in 2003. Its students had an average grade of 79.6 of a total of 100. This average was about 5 point higher than IME
's, the 2nd position for Electrical Engineering, with 75.2, about 14 points higher than the 3rd position, UFRGS, with 66.3, and about 17 point higher than renowned USP
and UNICAMP with 62.7 and 62.2, respectively. It was about 24 points higher than the 10th position for this course. That is a relative difference of more than 40%. All ten schools published in the list attained an 'A' grade at Provão.
It is now known that in almost every year of Provão up to 2003 ITA's courses figured in either first or second place in its categories, usually competing with IME
, both within considerable distance from the remaining schools. It is hard, though, to point references for such information, as it usually comes from unofficial sources or scattered news from journalists that had access to leaked information. INEP, the government institute which conducts these evaluations, publishes the results of all Provões at its website, but only shows the alphabetic grade and percentiles in which the students from the institution are (usually more than 90% of ITA's students figure between the top 25% grades in Provão). In 2003 94,3% of ITA's Electronic and Computer Engineering students were between the 25% top grades of the exam.
In the first edition of ENADE for Engineering in 2005, successor of Provão, which is only held about every 3 years, ITA's Computer Engineering course once again achieved the highest grade of its category. For the ENADE the government is publishing the actual average grade of each school at INEP's website. In 2008, ITA's Computer Engineering and Electronics Engineering courses scored the highest evaluation grade among all university courses from the areas evaluated in 2008, which included all engineering areas, computer science, math, architecture, among others. The course evaluation grade of ITA's Computer and Electronics Engineering was 485, out of a maximum of 500, based on the test results of the students graduated in 2008.
Brazilian Air Force
The Brazilian Air Force is the air branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces and one of the three national uniformed services. The FAB was formed when the Army and Navy air branch were merged into a single military force initially called "National Air Forces"...
. It is located in São José dos Campos
São José dos Campos
São José dos Campos is a municipality and a major city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil and one of the most important industrial and research centers in Latin America. It is located in the Paraíba Valley, between the two most active production and consumption regions in the country, São Paulo ...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. ITA is rated as one of the top and most prestigious engineering schools in Brazil, accepting little more than 100 students per year at its undergraduate courses. The school's admission exams for its undergraduate courses (called vestibular
Vestibular
The Vestibular is a competitive examination and is the primary and widespread system used by Brazilian universities to select their students. The Vestibular usually takes place from November to January, right before the start of school year in February or March, although certain universities hold...
in Brazil) are considered by the media to be the most difficult and most competitive in the country, and take place annually in over 25 cities throughout Brazil.
It is one of four institutes that encompass the Brazilian General Command for Aerospace Technology (CTA)
Brazilian General Command for Aerospace Technology (CTA)
The Brazilian General-Command for Aerospace Technology is the national military research center for aviation and space flight of Brazil. It is subordinated to the Brazilian Air Force....
, having its facilities, along with its laboratories and R&D centers, inside the campus
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
of CTA
CTA
CTA may refer to:*Brazilian General Command for Aerospace Technology, abbreviated CTA*California Teachers Association, a labor union*Call to Action...
. ITA is often mistakenly considered to be a military institution, because of its location, but it is civilian in nature, with a vast majority of civilian teachers, directors and students. The Air Force does help maintain the institution, though, and in exchange uses it for the training of its engineers.
The institution was created in 1950, being responsible and contributing in a great extent for the research and development of the aerospace and defense sectors in Brazil, including the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research - INPE, Embraer
Embraer
Embraer S.A. is a Brazilian aerospace conglomerate that produces commercial, military, and executive aircraft and provides aeronautical services....
and Avibrás
Avibras
Avibras Indústria Aeroespacial is a diversified Brazilian company which designs, develops and manufactures defense products and services. Its range of products encompasses artillery and aircraft defense systems, rockets and missiles...
.
ITA offers regular 5-year engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
undergraduate courses (Bachelor's of Engineering) and graduate
Graduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
programs including master's and doctorate degrees. All undergraduate students are granted full scholarships and board during entire five-year period. Complete residential facilities are offered to the students inside the campus, at a minimal cost. The college is known for being rigorous, demanding focus and a great effort from the students.
History
ITA was idealized and initially run by the MarshalMarshal of the Air Force
Marshal of the Air Force is the English term for the most senior rank in a number of air forces. The ranks described by this term can properly be considered marshal ranks....
Casimiro Montenegro Filho
Casimiro Montenegro Filho
Casimiro Montenegro Filho was a Brazilian army and air force officer. He reached the rank of Marechal-do-ar, the highest rank of the Brazilian Air Force rank system....
, who was then a Coronel. Montenegro was an Air Force pilot and pioneer who had also received a degree in Engineering. The idea of building a school of excellence in Aeronautics Engineering and related fields came as the first step towards building a strong aeronautics industry in Brazil.
A commission was created in 1946 in order to organize the Technical Center of Aeronautics (in Portuguese Centro Técnico de Aeronáutica, or CTA), a sprawling facility that was later renamed, but kept the same acronym. ITA was to be the first institution in CTA, which would later harbor other aerospace related institutes.
Marshal Casimiro Montenegro was very passionate and idealist, and was committed to creating the best school that could possibly be created. He visited the most renowned Aeronautics Engineering schools in the US at the time, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
and the Wright Field (home of the Air Force Institute of Technology
Air Force Institute of Technology
The Air Force Institute of Technology is a graduate school and provider of professional and continuing education that is part of the United States Air Force. It is located on Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. A component of Air University and Air Education and Training Command, AFIT has been...
). There he hired MIT's professor Richard Harbert Smith
Richard Harbert Smith
Richard Harbert Smith was a professor and researcher of aeronautical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , from 1929 to 1945....
to help develop a plan for such a school, which was dubbed "The Smith Plan". Prof. Smith would later become ITA's first rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...
.
Montenegro hired renowned foreign professors and experts from various parts of the world to teach at ITA, the majority of them from MIT, influenced by Prof. Smith
Richard Harbert Smith
Richard Harbert Smith was a professor and researcher of aeronautical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , from 1929 to 1945....
. At a given time of its history, ITA had teachers from more than 20 different nationalities in its faculty, an impressive number, considering it had (and still has) a faculty of little more than 100 teachers. Nowadays the overwhelming majority of the teachers are Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ians, many of whom have graduated from ITA themselves.
A book by Tércio Pacitti
Tércio Pacitti
Tércio Pacitti is a electronic engineer and computer scientist in Brazil.- Biography :Pacitti was born in Piracicaba-SP, where he did his basic studies at the Colégio Piracicabano. He graduated as aeronautical engineer from ITA, first in the class of 1952, having completed a Masters and Ph.D. at...
, a former ITA rector, mentions that Montenegro went to great lengths in order to be able to hire and maintain a 'super-star' faculty. Their pay was considerably high, a requirement to convince them to move to an unknown and poor country, as was Brazil in the '50s. He had, many times, to conceal their actual pay from his superiors in the Air Force, disguising it as other forms of expenditures.
At the same time the team of professors brought to Brazil by Montenegro started to lecture in the Army Technical School (EsTE, nowadays IME, Instituto Militar de Engenharia
Instituto Militar de Engenharia
The Instituto Militar de Engenharia is an engineering university maintained by the Brazilian Army with Federal support. IME is the oldest and one of the best ranked engineering schools in Brazil, according to the Ministry of Education of that country...
), in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, CTA's and ITA's facilities began to be built in the city of São José dos Campos
São José dos Campos
São José dos Campos is a municipality and a major city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil and one of the most important industrial and research centers in Latin America. It is located in the Paraíba Valley, between the two most active production and consumption regions in the country, São Paulo ...
. This city was small and its economy was mainly rural, but Casimiro and his fellows predicted that, due to its location (between Brazil's biggest cities, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo) and geography, it was a good place to be the birth of the aeronautics industry in Brazil. They turned out to be right, since about only 20 years later a company called EMBRAER
Embraer
Embraer S.A. is a Brazilian aerospace conglomerate that produces commercial, military, and executive aircraft and provides aeronautical services....
, nowadays the third largest commercial jet manufacturer in the world, was started there, created and run by ITA's alumni.
In 1950 ITA's basic facilities were finished and its first students moved there from Rio, to finish the courses they had started in the Army's facilities. Despite the fact ITA was run and maintained mostly by the Air Force, most of its students were civilians. That was a key point in the "Smith Plan", that ITA should form civilian engineers, to aid in the development of the Brazilian industry, specially the aeronautical one. Over the years a larger percentage of ITA's revenues began to come directly from the government. Nowadays the Air Force contributes with an amount that is somewhat proportional to the number of military students at ITA.
Undergraduate courses
- Aeronautical Engineering
- Aerospace Engineering
- Civil Engineering
- Computer Engineering
- Electronic Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering
Graduate programs
- Aeronautical & Mechanical Engineering
- Aeronautical Infrastructure Engineering
- Electronic & Computer Engineering
- Physics
Military career
Due to ITA's strong connection with the Air Force, the undergraduate students have the choice to become part of the military (as engineering officersOfficer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
) or keep their status as civilians, as members of the reserve, when they apply. About 20% of the students admitted in the institute follow the military career, starting to receive paychecks and wearing uniforms at the beginning of their 3rd year of school. Most of the students follow a civilian career, pursuing jobs in the market in Brazil or abroad, as they graduate.
During their first year at ITA, the undergraduate students are required to attend a military preparation course once a week, and receive monthly cost-of-living allowances for it during this period. For the male students it also fulfills their obligatory military service, which all male citizens in Brazil are required to attend (although the majority of them are dismissed at presentation).
Numbers (undergraduate courses only)
- ITA is currently accepting between 120 and 130 undergraduate students per year.
- 9,080 students took ITA's admission exam in the year of 2003, and about 8,000 in 2004. That means there were about 70 applicants per vacancy or that only about 1.5% of the applicants were accepted.
- About 4,600 engineers graduated from ITA, since its foundation.
- EMBRAEREmbraerEmbraer S.A. is a Brazilian aerospace conglomerate that produces commercial, military, and executive aircraft and provides aeronautical services....
alone, which was created by ITA's undergraduate alumni and currently employs hundreds of engineers from ITA, generated a positive net export balance of $1.529 billion dollars in 2005, over 150 times the yearly investment made in ITA by the Brazilian Government. - By the time ITA was created, its home town, São José dos CamposSão José dos CamposSão José dos Campos is a municipality and a major city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil and one of the most important industrial and research centers in Latin America. It is located in the Paraíba Valley, between the two most active production and consumption regions in the country, São Paulo ...
, had about 44,000 inhabitants and its economy was mainly rural. Nowadays the city has about 630,000 inhabitants (or close to 1,000,000 when the population of adjacent cities is included) and it has become one of the most important industrial and research hubs in the country.
Admissions (undergraduate courses only)
As in most of Brazilian universities and colleges, admissions at ITA are made by means of a series of written exams, applied annually, called vestibularVestibular
The Vestibular is a competitive examination and is the primary and widespread system used by Brazilian universities to select their students. The Vestibular usually takes place from November to January, right before the start of school year in February or March, although certain universities hold...
. ITA's vestibular is composed of 5 exams, each on one of the following subjects: Mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, Physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, Chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. The English exam is only classificatory, meaning the candidates are only required to achieve a minimum result in order to be qualified. The other four exams are eliminatory and competitive, meaning the applicants with the higher average grade (the four tests have equal weights) will be selected.
Students are selected based exclusively on their grades in the exam, and will be distributed in the 5 available Engineering courses according to number of seats available for each course and the list of course preferences the student fills at the time of his application.
The subjects of the exams are covered in much greater depth and difficulty than the exams from other colleges and universities in Brazil, including all the top universities such as UNESP
Unesp
Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho is one of the six public universities of the Brazilian state of São Paulo, with USP, UFABC, UNIFESP, UFSCar and UNICAMP. It's a part of the state’s higher education system.UNESP has a combined student body of almost 40,000 spread among its 23...
, UNICAMP, UFSC or USP
University of São Paulo
Universidade de São Paulo is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian university and one of the country's most prestigious...
, what makes it a necessity for the student to be prepared specifically for ITA's entrance exam. That usually demands an extra year of study or more (students often take the test 3 or 4 years before being selected). Another Engineering college, maintained by the Army, Instituto Militar de Engenharia
Instituto Militar de Engenharia
The Instituto Militar de Engenharia is an engineering university maintained by the Brazilian Army with Federal support. IME is the oldest and one of the best ranked engineering schools in Brazil, according to the Ministry of Education of that country...
(Military Institute of Engineering - IME), have exams of similar difficulty, but with a smaller amount of candidates. Candidates usually prepare for both exams, from ITA and IME, in a way that the majority of the candidates selected by ITA ends up being selected by IME as well. The vast majority of the candidates nowadays chooses to study at ITA, when approved in both schools, due to the civilian nature of ITA and its better renown in the market.
Course evaluation results
From the 1996 to 2003, the Brazilian government conducted yearly evaluation exams for every undergraduate course in Brazil. Written exams, specific to every different type of college course, were given to every student at the time of their graduation and the results were used to evaluate the quality of the college courses and schools in Brazil. These exams were called Provão ("big test", in English). Unfortunately, due to pressure from the privately owned colleges and universities in Brazil, whose students usually got poor grades in the exams, Provão was dropped after 2003 and the evaluations are now done only every 5 years and only a small percentage (about 5%) of the students, randomly picked, take the exam for a given type of course.| Provão's Electrical Engineering results in 2003 - top 10 schools |
|
|---|---|
| School | Avg. Grade (out of 100) |
| ITA | 79.6 |
| IME Instituto Militar de Engenharia The Instituto Militar de Engenharia is an engineering university maintained by the Brazilian Army with Federal support. IME is the oldest and one of the best ranked engineering schools in Brazil, according to the Ministry of Education of that country... |
75.2 |
| UFRGS | 66.3 |
| UFMG | 66.0 |
| USP (São Paulo) University of São Paulo Universidade de São Paulo is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian university and one of the country's most prestigious... |
62.7 |
| UNICAMP | 62.2 |
| UFRJ | 60.4 |
| UFES | 59.6 |
| USP (São Carlos) University of São Paulo Universidade de São Paulo is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian university and one of the country's most prestigious... |
57.6 |
| UNESP Unesp Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho is one of the six public universities of the Brazilian state of São Paulo, with USP, UFABC, UNIFESP, UFSCar and UNICAMP. It's a part of the state’s higher education system.UNESP has a combined student body of almost 40,000 spread among its 23... |
56.4 |
Based on the average grade obtained by the students course, every school was given a grade from 'A' to 'E' for each of its courses, with 'A' being the best. ITA was the only institution in Brazil to have obtained only 'A's in all the years of Provão, for all of its courses. The Provão results are somewhat misleading, though, as the grades are given by ordering the average grades of the schools in a list and giving the label 'A' to a certain predefined number of schools, and so on. Therefore, two schools that were given the grade 'A' can have substantially different scores, and that is usually the case. The actual grades for each school were not announced by the government, but a list with the highest average grades in 2003 "leaked" and was published by the national magazine Veja
Veja (magazine)
Veja is a Brazilian weekly newsmagazine published in São Paulo and distributed throughout the country by the media conglomerate Grupo Abril. It is the leading weekly publication in the country, and one of the most influential outlets of the Brazilian press...
.
The published list showed that the courses of Electronic and Computer Engineering at ITA, which both took the exam of Electrical Engineering, attained the highest average grade of the whole Provão in 2003. Its students had an average grade of 79.6 of a total of 100. This average was about 5 point higher than IME
Instituto Militar de Engenharia
The Instituto Militar de Engenharia is an engineering university maintained by the Brazilian Army with Federal support. IME is the oldest and one of the best ranked engineering schools in Brazil, according to the Ministry of Education of that country...
's, the 2nd position for Electrical Engineering, with 75.2, about 14 points higher than the 3rd position, UFRGS, with 66.3, and about 17 point higher than renowned USP
University of São Paulo
Universidade de São Paulo is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian university and one of the country's most prestigious...
and UNICAMP with 62.7 and 62.2, respectively. It was about 24 points higher than the 10th position for this course. That is a relative difference of more than 40%. All ten schools published in the list attained an 'A' grade at Provão.
It is now known that in almost every year of Provão up to 2003 ITA's courses figured in either first or second place in its categories, usually competing with IME
Instituto Militar de Engenharia
The Instituto Militar de Engenharia is an engineering university maintained by the Brazilian Army with Federal support. IME is the oldest and one of the best ranked engineering schools in Brazil, according to the Ministry of Education of that country...
, both within considerable distance from the remaining schools. It is hard, though, to point references for such information, as it usually comes from unofficial sources or scattered news from journalists that had access to leaked information. INEP, the government institute which conducts these evaluations, publishes the results of all Provões at its website, but only shows the alphabetic grade and percentiles in which the students from the institution are (usually more than 90% of ITA's students figure between the top 25% grades in Provão). In 2003 94,3% of ITA's Electronic and Computer Engineering students were between the 25% top grades of the exam.
In the first edition of ENADE for Engineering in 2005, successor of Provão, which is only held about every 3 years, ITA's Computer Engineering course once again achieved the highest grade of its category. For the ENADE the government is publishing the actual average grade of each school at INEP's website. In 2008, ITA's Computer Engineering and Electronics Engineering courses scored the highest evaluation grade among all university courses from the areas evaluated in 2008, which included all engineering areas, computer science, math, architecture, among others. The course evaluation grade of ITA's Computer and Electronics Engineering was 485, out of a maximum of 500, based on the test results of the students graduated in 2008.
Notable alumni
In alphabetical order:- Bernardo Szpigel, CFO, Suzano Papel e Celulose.
- Carlos Henrique de Brito CruzCarlos Henrique de Brito CruzCarlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, born in Rio de Janeiro on July 19 1956, is a Brazilian electronic engineer and physicist, and the current scientific director of FAPESP...
, former Dean, UNICAMP; Science Director, FAPESP. - Carlos Henrique Moreira, CEO, Embratel.
- Cassio Taniguchi, Brazilian Congressman (as of 2006).
- Conrado Engel, CEO, HSBC Brasil.
- Dimas Lara Barbosa, Rio de Janeiro Auxiliary BishopAuxiliary bishopAn auxiliary bishop, in the Roman Catholic Church, is an additional bishop assigned to a diocese because the diocesan bishop is unable to perform his functions, the diocese is so extensive that it requires more than one bishop to administer, or the diocese is attached to a royal or imperial office...
, Roman Catholic ChurchRoman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
in BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. - Edson Vaz Musa, President of the Board of Directors of Caloi. Also, former member of Rhône Poulanc Group Executive Committee, current member of the Board of Advisors of NaturaNaturaNatura is the Brazilian leading manufacturer and marketer of skin care, solar filters, cosmetics, perfume and hair care products....
, WEG IndustriesWEG IndustriesWEG is an industry headquartered in Jaraguá do Sul, Brazil, operating worldwide in the electric engineering, power and automation technology areas. The company produces electric motors, generators, transformers, drives and coatings. WEG has operations in around 100 countries, with approximately...
, TV CulturaTV CulturaTV Cultura is Brazilian television network headquartered in São Paulo and a part of Fundação Padre Anchieta. It focuses on cultural subjects but also has sports as entertainment options.- History :...
, Alliance Française, amongst others. - Emanuel Fernandes, Brazilian Congressman (as of 2010) and two-term Mayor of São José dos Campos (1997–2004).
- Frederico Fleury Curado, CEO, EMBRAEREmbraerEmbraer S.A. is a Brazilian aerospace conglomerate that produces commercial, military, and executive aircraft and provides aeronautical services....
. - Jean Paul JacobJean Paul JacobJean Paul Jacob is a Brazilian electronic engineer, researcher and professor.He received his electronic engineering degree from the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, in Brazil, and his MS and PhD degrees in Mathematics and Engineering from the University of California, at Berkeley.In 1962 he...
, Research Leader and Visionary, IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
. - Jorge Bittar, Brazilian Congressman (as of 2006).
- Kristo IvanovKristo IvanovKristo Ivanov is a Swedish-Brazilian information scientist and systems scientist of ethnic Bulgarian origin. He is professor emeritus at the Department of informatics of Umeå University in Sweden.-Biography:...
, Professor of InformaticsInformation science-Introduction:Information science is an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information...
, Umeå UniversityUmeå UniversityUmeå University is a university in Umeå in the mid-northern region of Sweden. The university was founded in 1965 and is the fifth oldest within Sweden's present borders....
. - Luiz Eduardo Falco Correa, CEO, Oi/Brasil Telecom.
- Marcos César Pontes, First Brazilian astronautAstronautAn astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
; - Ned KockNed KockNed Kock is best known for employing biological evolution ideas to the understanding of human behavior toward technologies, particularly information technologies. He developed media naturalness theory, an evolutionary communication media theory...
, Professor of Information SystemsInformation systemsInformation Systems is an academic/professional discipline bridging the business field and the well-defined computer science field that is evolving toward a new scientific area of study...
, Texas A&M International UniversityTexas A&M International UniversityTexas A&M International University, often referred to as TAMIU, is a public, co-educational, state-supported university located in Laredo, Texas...
. - Ozires SilvaOzires SilvaOzires Silva is the founder of Embraer and a famous Brazilian entrepreneur.Ozires graduated on Escola de Aeronáutica do Campo dos Afonsos as a military pilot...
, Founder and former CEO, EMBRAEREmbraerEmbraer S.A. is a Brazilian aerospace conglomerate that produces commercial, military, and executive aircraft and provides aeronautical services....
. - Rogério César de Cerqueira Leite, experimental physicist and scientific leader.
- Walter Schalka, CEO, Votorantim Cimentos.
See also
- Brazil University Rankings
- Universities and Higher Education in BrazilUniversities and higher education in BrazilBrazil adopts a mixed system of public and private funded universities. Usually public funded universities offer the best quality education, and they are 100% financed by the government...