Bolsonaro attacks public university, science and critical thinking | Society

Marina Correa, 27, with whom Guilhom is investigating the sustainability of the oceans, is particularly concerned about the presidential disdain. "His statements undermine our credibility, he says that science is not productive in trying to separate us further from society," he says, surrounded by banners carrying slogans such as "The government wants to destroy education because it overthrows governments "or" Scientists do not do it exist only in movies. "

Jair Messias Bolsonaro, the far-right party that presides over Brazil, studied at a military academy in the 1970s, during the dictatorship. He became captain of skydiving before embarking on a long parliamentary career. He never hid that he considered universities as a nest of dangerous reds and that the quality of teaching was catastrophic. During the election campaign, he proposed to implement "distance education because we help fight Marxism". Eradicating what he calls "cultural Marxism" and "gender ideology" in clbad is one of his obsessions.

Another is that the school teaches reading, writing and a profession that generates tangible benefits. That's why I recently suggested in a tweet that the budget devoted to sociology and philosophy be redirected to "focus on areas generating immediate return for the taxpayer: veterinarian, engineering and medicine" .

João Marcelo Borges, director of political strategy at Todos Pela Educação, a civil society movement, says that all governments usually block funds for balancing accounts. But criticizes the fact that it is "a linear cut, without criteria" and without dialogue with the rectors. He added that "since the elections, several ministers have expressed their opposition to the public university on the basis of ideological perceptions, we need to know if the cuts go beyond the financial crisis".

The four long months of the presidency of Bolsonaro were particularly stormy at the Ministry of Education, the scene of a fratricidal war between government sectors that resulted in the fall of the original minister, 15 resignations and the weeks of paralysis. The current minister, economist and university professor, expressed with little precision his intention to maintain the national literacy plan announced by his predecessor and extend technical and vocational education. Borges points out that the minister has opened a dialogue with the world of education. "We still have no clear priorities, but a change of procedure," he said.

Although Brazil spends 6% of its GDP on education, the average expenditure per student is one third of the OECD average (a rich country club) and its results are still poor despite the improvements in education. last decade. Except in the most remote corners, the problem is not going to school but to learn. The World Bank has calculated that it would take 260 years for Brazilian students to reach, in terms of reading ability, the OECD average and 75 years in mathematics. This is happening in the rest of Latin America and it is even more serious in Africa.

The president's proposal to stop investing in the teaching of sociology and philosophy also quickly received a response from abroad. Some 800 institutions around the world and 17,000 people signed an open letter, designed by two Harvard students, to maintain funding for both disciplines. Professor Jocelyn Viternam, one of the signatories, explains to the student newspaper Harvard Crimson that "when the parties try to limit the creation and development of knowledge about power, inequality and society, it is worrying".

The signatories of the letter ask the government of Bolsonaro to reconsider its proposal because, they stress, "the goal of higher education is not to produce" immediate returns "on an investment. The goal "must always be to create a well-educated and enriched society, benefiting from collective efforts to create human knowledge." "Higher education is a goal in itself," they say.

The spending control policy also affected the Ministry of Science and Technology, which lost 42% of its budget, to the annoyance of its owner, retired astronaut and military Marcos Pontes. The armed forces also saw 44% of their funds steal.

When the campaign proposed distance learning as an excellent solution, Bolsonaro praised Chinese, Japanese and Israeli children to know the chemical equations, create an integral, a derivative … and laughed at it from what he interpreted as a critical thought: "Meanwhile, our boy has critical thinking.He decides whether he is a man or a woman, which is the big question of his life, in addition to political activism ".