The leftist candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Luiz Lula da Silva, said yesterday, 21, that he intends to expand the number of federal universities in the country.
“We must continue to build more universities so that more Brazilians can study, improve and have a profession,” he said during a campaign event in Teófilo Otoni, Minas Gerais.
For da Silva, the workforce qualification will allow Brazil to better position itself even in international markets.
“When this happens, we will not only export soy, corn, and iron ore, we will export the thing that has more added value, which is the intelligence of the Brazilian people and their knowledge”, he added.
The candidate also promised to build a university hospital in the region. “So that medical students can improve themselves,” he emphasized.
Later, while speaking to the press in Juiz de Fora and Minas Gerais, da Silva returned to the education theme.
“We are going to come back very strongly to Fies and Prouni,” he said about the student financing policies for higher education adopted by previous PT administrations.
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According to the former president, these policies, together with the adoption of racial and social quotas, allowed the body of students at the universities to come closer to the Brazilian reality.
“The quality has changed, and the color of the Brazilian university has changed; it is for everyone now. It shows the face of the Brazilian people; it’s a mixture”, he pointed out while remembering that before these policies, higher education was mainly for the wealthiest layers of the population.
“The university before was white; rarely did you find a black kid in the university.
Da Silva also said he intends to work on primary education with values contributing to the fight against racism. “We will reiterate the study of African history in our Brazil,” he said.
In addition, the candidate said that, if elected, he would put into practice one of the proposals made by Senator Simone Tebet (MDB), who ran for president in the first round of the elections and is now a supporter of da Silva.
“Make high school also integral and professional. People have to learn a profession. Because if people are working and want to study, they can support themselves much more easily,” she said.