By Richard Mann, Contributing Reporter
BRAZIL, RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazilian Minister of Education, Abraham Weintraub, characterized the model of investment in education practiced by the administrations that preceded that of president Jair Bolsonaro as a disaster, especially the policies of incentives regarding higher education, reports O Globo in its latest report.
Weintraub participated, on Tuesday morning, in a public hearing at the Federal Senate Committee for Education, Culture and Sports (CE), where he presented his ministry’s guidelines and priority programs.
In Weintraub’s assessment, past administrations have expanded higher education without first prioritizing the steps of primary and middle education.
“Here in Brazil we wanted to skip steps and invested too many resources in the roof before we had the house’s foundation,” he said.
The Minister repeatedly criticized the operating model of Brazilian universities. He said he defends autonomy for universities, but followed with saying that autonomy does not mean sovereignty.
“We cannot allow drug use on our campuses. Why can’t the police enter a school’s campus? Is it an autonomous country? There’s violence happening there, and they can’t go in. Are they supposed to clap and stare?”
Weintraub claimed past governments diverted money toward private institutions and inflated the costs of graduation, getting the students who cannot get a job today into debt.
“Student financing is a tragedy. There are 500 thousand young people starting their lives with sullied names,” he said, referencing the defaulting young people at FIES.
The Minister also presented data to demonstrate that the country’s scientific output is, in his assessment, “not very relevant”. The data presented by the Minister does not refer directly to the scientific output, but rather, on external references of Brazilian articles.
According to the Minister, only 13 percent of the scientific output on the area of human and social sciences are referenced in any way.
(Source: O Globo)