[Nursing teaching and the national curricular directives: utopia x reality].

This article aims at provoking reflections concerning Nursing education in the light of the Curricular Directives for the Undergraduate Course in Nursing and their relation to health policies and the current labor market. The facts reported show curricular changes in Nursing education in Brazil have historically been concerned with the adequacy of the nurse's formation to the interests of the labor market. However, the challenge in nurse's formation needs to overcome the focus of these interests and to effectively insert the future nurse into the health system, committed to the transformations demanded for the exercise of citizenship.