Abstract
The evasion of academics in higher education has become a problem that affects Brazilian education, impacting both higher education institutions and society in general. This is because, evasion leads to the waste of resources, generates underutilization of human capital, in addition to the fact that, having not graduated, the student does not offer the expected return to society. Therefore, based on a theoretical contribution from the Education area, this proposal seeks to contribute to this discussion in the area of Executive Secretariat. To this end, this study aims to investigate the evasion scenario of undergraduate students in Executive Secretariat courses in the country, as well as to identify the causes of student evasion from the Executive Secretariat course at Unioeste. To achieve the objectives, the research was developed from secondary data from the Census of Higher Education (Instituo Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anisio Teixeira) between the years 2012 to 2017 and also from primary data obtained with students dropping out of the Unioeste Secretariat Course. The main results point to an average dropout rate of 45% in the different Secretariat courses in the country and a scenario of shrinking vacancies and courses in the area. Regarding the causes of evasion in Unioeste, it was found that aspects external to the institution - mostly related to dissatisfaction with the job market prospects for the secretarial area - have a significant influence on the decision to evade the course.