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Paula Ramón
The crusade against "cultural Marxism" undertaken by Jair Bolsonaro's far-right government strikes squarely at education in Brazil.
Budget blockages for universities, internal wars and purges within the ministry, controversial announcements and refusals the next day, resignation of the minister after three months of disastrous management: education in Brazil, which presents enormous challenges, lives troubled hours.
The 30% freeze in the budget of federal institutions recently announced by the Ministry of Education set in motion the academic world, which attempted Monday to boycott Bolsonaro's act at a military school in Rio.
For this Friday, the former Education Minister and Bolsonaro's rival in the presidential elections of October, the leftist Fernando Haddad, has launched a new protest in the capital, Rio de Janeiro.
"The right is allergic to education," he said Thursday.
The ministry claims that the measure does not meet ideological criteria, but the budget restrictions and the economic situation of the country.
However, the blockade of funds had originally been announced as an adjustment from three universities that were holding debates with left-wing personalities and which had been reported by the new Minister of Education, Abraham Weintraub. , to "sow disorder".
Weintraub, who in December at the conservative seminary had insisted on the importance of expelling the "cultural Marxism" of the universities, had already warmed up earlier by suggesting reducing investments in the humanities at the expense of practices such as veterinary medicine. or engineering "that generate more return".
The secretary of higher education of the office, Arnaldo Barbosa of Lima, badured AFP that the blocking of funds did not threaten the functionality of the institutions and that it should be revalued if the l 39; Brazilian economy was growing. Barbosa de Lima relativized the previous announcements and pointed out that there were no ideological criteria guiding the mailing.
The 30% freeze in the budget was originally announced as an adjustment to three universities that had organized debates with left-wing figures and government critics.
University rectors say that these holdbacks can jeopardize the execution of contracts and the payment of services and suppliers in areas essential to the functioning of federal institutions, such as cleaning, security and cooking, threatening to cripple their institutions. activities.
Sandra Goulart Almeida, rector of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, explains that by threatening such a basic activity as the payment of electricity, they risk extinguishing their laboratory equipment such as refrigerators and lose years of advanced research. "These resource blockages have been around for some time, but not as it was announced now," said Gregorio Grisa, PhD in Education at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRS).
More than a thousand international university academics have questioned in a statement the proposal that would have even triggered the friendly shots of a right-wing academic who characterized this statement as "ambiguous, even strategic.
"It is still too early for further badysis, but the Ministry of Education is the scene of discussions that are not relevant to education (…). improvisation and a mixture of ideological elements and ignorance of the education system, "says Grisa.
More investment
Although Brazil spends nearly 6% of its GDP on education, it is lagging behind other countries in the region such as Chile, Colombia or Uruguay in the Pisa test of the Organization's Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Experts argue that the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of unequal Brazil require greater investment and that technical and scientific criteria must prevail over ideological ones.
In his statements, Bolsonaro, elected on a conservative basis, questioned bad education in schools and encouraged students to film teachers in clbadrooms in order to control the content taught, in order to avoid a so-called left indoctrination.
Weintraub, in a more moderate tone than the previous days, told the Senate that one of his objectives was technical management aimed at producing results, setting up an education system guided by merit, respect for freedom and diversity of ideas, and investment in human capital to increase the competitiveness of the economy.
"I have not exorcised my fear of staying in ideological warfare, which is a bad advisor in a country where inequalities are so great, but for the first time, the minister has talked about challenges with a more technical base. "said Professor Claudia Costin, Director of the Center for Media. Innovation in the educational policies of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation.
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