The National Student Performance Examination and the quality of Brazilian higher education in health

OBJECTIVE: to analyze higher education in the health area in Brazil according to the results of the students’ performance in the 2019 National Student Performance Examination. METHOD: a cross-sectional and retrospective study with a quantitative approach and online data referring to 192,715 students from 3,712 health courses, collected in 2020. The students’ performance was expressed in concepts, ordered on a scale of one to five. Box-plots were prepared, prevalence values of the concepts were estimated, and the differences were evaluated through statistical tests (α=5%) according to the administrative and management characteristics, as well as those of the cities where the courses were offered. RESULTS: there was a satisfactory level of higher education in health (70.0% with a score ≥3). The Medicine courses were the most satisfactorily evaluated while Speech Therapy and Nursing obtained the worst scores. Public, face-to-face and university education were associated with better teaching quality. Lower levels were found in the North region states, in small towns, outside metropolitan areas and in those under private management. CONCLUSION: heterogeneity in the quality of higher education across the health courses was verified, indicating its association with the characteristics of the teaching institutions and with the infrastructure of the cities where the courses are offered, pointing out challenges to the quality of health education in Brazil.