one of the most important initiatives in this sense is the national programme for access to technical education and employment pronatec being carried out by the ministry of education in partnership with the ministry of social development the programme offers free professional training courses lasting a minimum of hours for citizens years and older focused on those in the single registry for social programmes those who prefer to work autonomously are encouraged to register in the brazil without poverty plan as individual microbusinesses enabling the brazilian small and micro businesses support service sebrae to coordinate their participation in a programme that offers technical and managerial assistance