Scientific entities criticize proposals to pay SUS and tuition fees in public universities – Brazil

The Parliament’s Science and Technology Initiative (ICTP.Br) – It is composed of entities such as the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), the National Association of Directors of Federal Institutions of Higher Education (Andifes) and Brazilian Association for the Advancement of Science (SBPC) – On Wednesday, 26th, published a statement against the “demagogic proposal to charge tuition fees in public higher education”.

ICTP.Br’s note was posted in an awkward situation after an article by stadium Reveal Military project, associated with Villas Bôas, Sagres and Federalista Institutes, proposing to charge tuition fees at federal universities, in addition to proposing to “neutralize” teaching ideologies. The establishment of tuition fees in public institutions of higher education is also a topic Proposal to amend the constitution 206Which entered the agenda of the Constitution and Justice Committee of the Council.

In the letter, ICTP.Br described these militaristic ideas as a “Brazilian project that runs counter to the moral and political values ​​guided by the Citizen Constitution of 1988”. This, he says, “would create a huge bureaucracy to decide which students can pay and who can’t, and social justice could be better promoted through progressive rates for (federal) income tax, (state) and urban (municipal) land and property tax.”

a report stadium It also shows that this military project expects to maintain force until 2035 and advocates the end of free access to the Unified Health System (SUS). The military document deals with 37 strategic issues. It deals with geopolitics, national governance, development, science and technology, education, health, and national defense and security.

ICTP.Br also does not agree with the health proposals. “We also do not agree with the proposal to charge the middle class for use of SUS services, which would make access to them paid for those with incomes over three minimum wages.”

The group of scientific entities asserts that “the solution to social inequalities lies not in the commodification of outstanding public goods, such as education and health, but in their dissemination, with their financing based on fair and progressive taxation,” the note says.

In the end, ICTP.Br sends a message to the military. “Finally, we remind you that although retired military personnel, like every citizen, have the right to express their political opinions, one of the fundamental principles of democracy is that the people it arms, such as the police or military personnel, must maintain a spirit of restraint with a degree of high, and not to use physical force to intimidate the citizens, whom they must serve.”

SBPC chief says commoditizing education is not out of it

In an article published in Jornal da Ciência, the head of the SBPC, Renato Janin Ribeiro, lists the problems with the proposal to charge tuition fees in public higher education. “The first is that defenders of this charge are often ignorant that the characteristics of public university students have completely changed, particularly thanks to quota policy. It is no longer true that the typical university student, in federal institutions, is someone who has studied in expensive private schools. We have more and more. From students coming from public schools and more and more descendants of Africans or indigenous peoples,” the philosopher stands out.

The second point, according to him, “is that the best funding for higher education (and for research, in good educational institutions) comes from progressive taxation, not from commodification of education.” Another hitch, Ribeiro adds to stadiumis the bureaucracy in implementing this model.

“There’s a practical problem, which I haven’t seen raised, that would generate an enormous bureaucracy. Are you going to check one’s income or his family? They don’t want money from their father, who is self-supporting. And you have people in their forties living in their parents’ house, clean clothes, and food.” , and perhaps a bonus,” said the former Minister of Education.