Transforming state regular schools into technical schools: A case study in Brazil southeast region

Education plays a pivotal role in smart cities by providing professionals capable of proposing solutions and dealing with advanced technologies. In addition, ISO 34122 points education as one of the pillars required for the development of real smart cities, by supporting innovation, economic growth in a knowledge-based economy and social mobility. In Brazil, the federal government has been making efforts to expand access to technical courses by establishing new campuses of institutions that offer them across the country. But, beyond increasing the offer of courses, it is important to verify the companies located near each educational unit, so that the courses offered can help to integrate students and graduates into the local job market as skilled labor. This article presents an integer linear programming model designed to identify regular schools that could be converted into technical schools, taking into account the distances between schools, neighborhoods, and business hubs. The experiments were carried out in two different scenarios. First, considering only the available state schools for conversion. Then, adding the existing federal technical schools. This study considered the four capital cities of Brazil’s Southeast region as case studies, where the optimal combinations of neighborhoods, schools, and courses were determined for each city.