This article has as research proposal a study about visual arts teachers training in the context of Higher Education in the distance modality of Brazil’s Open University System and its political implications. Starting from the principle of emancipatory education and artistic practices within art studios, this research also analyzes the complexity of teacher training, and in particular arts education teaching, in distance modality of the Open University of Brazil (OUB). In this sense are referenced authors like Jacques Rancière and Paulo Freire who both deal with issues on the concepts of intellectual emancipation, of emancipatory educational practices and liberating education.

One of the most important distance education training programs in Brazil is the OUB system, which is an integrated system of public universities that offers higher education courses, through the use of distance education methodology, for the population who have difficulty accessing university education. And it is a system that guarantees financial resources, therefore, access is free and is currently managed through the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Personnel (CAPES), who establishes partnerships among public universities and articulates the implementation, between states and cities governments, of face-to-face tutoring in learning centers.

OUB was created to fill a gap in the public face-to-face system, where it does not meet the demand of teachers in a country as vast as Brazil, thus this program is affirmed by the Federal Government’s educational public policies, a large system that if not assured can collapse as a result of political changes. As long as the OUB is seen as an emergency program it will be perceived as a marginal activity, on the margins of face-to-face teaching. It’ll continue to be undervalued, ill-paid and poorly seen. A grand system like the OUB needs to undergo systematic changes and improvements, and not be at the mercy of political interests because a serious country is a country committed to education.

In OUB's distance learning today, artistic practice is launched to the students in form of tutorials, videos in virtual environments or, in the best scenario, through the teachers’ presence at the learning centers. This is where the student first studies the techniques and then moves on to practice. One of the proposals of this article is the artistic autonomy of the student in the courses such as studio artistic practices. The student has the possibility to choose his artistic options through projects or artist residences, to be incorporated in the required courses (studio practices) of the visual arts teachers training. Moreover, studies show that these practices that have been worked on inside the workshops’ face-to-face learning centers are not totally adapted (in some cases the spaces don’t even exist) and ineffectively attend practical activities, as they function in a traditional and academic format that doesn’t fit into the realities of these Brazilian regions.

Some research questions consist of: Are such practices preponderant in the training of these future teachers who will act as art educators in the context of basic education? If yes, how to think about new pedagogical practices, which attends in a less hierarchical and outmoded way facing the difficulties found in the OUB’s art studios? How to emancipate the student and future teacher to work independently, in an autonomous and decolonized pedagogical circle of knowledge? Still, will these teachers, through their experiences, cultural experiences and filters, think about the specificities of the places, be multipliers of these practices, and thus emancipate themselves from the academic formats of the studios and act on projects as a shared experience?

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