Combating the dropout of blacks from universities requires new policies

Quota Law

The subject was discussed in a conversation at the Museum of Tomorrow, in Rio

The evasion of black students from universities is a factor that indicates the need to formulate new public policies that allow these students to remain. Even with the growth in the number of Afro-descendant students in higher education, as a result of the effectiveness of affirmative actions such as the Quota Law, this population still faces a series of barriers to their permanence in universities.

Expenses with transport due to the distance between the place of residence and the university unit also contribute to the abandonment of school benches. Another factor that affects student mothers and fathers is the lack of day care centers close to the places where they study to leave their children while they are in class.

These were some of the conclusions of the Black Youth Conversation Circle: Collective Trajectories at Universities, with Oxfam Brasil, which debated the context of black students in Rio de Janeiro, both at undergraduate and graduate level in universities. The meeting took place this Saturday (15), at the Museum of Tomorrow, in the port region of Rio.

The coordinator of the Center for Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Studies at UniRio (NEABI), Professor Jane Santos; graduate student Estefane Silva, who is part of student movement collectives for the permanence of black students in this graduation range, and state deputy Renata Souza (PSOL-RJ), who has been working in the defense of human rights for more than 12 years with participation of social movements and proposition of public policies in the legislature of Rio de Janeiro.

The difficulties also extend to the effects of the covid-19 pandemic. “We are in a post-pandemic scenario of very high evasion of university students who have undergone affirmative action and are quota holders, due to the precariousness of life itself. Between going to university, having a scholarship and following a path, many of them have left university to work to survive and provide for their families.”pointed out, in an interview with Agência Brasil, the project officer at Oxfam Brasil and mediator of the conversation wheel, Bárbara Barboza (photo).

As a solution to part of the dropout problems, the debate also pointed, according to Bárbara Barboza, to the implementation of an active search for students and the integrated vision of public policies.

“In the sense that we can think about building day care centers very close to or within the universities because the context of university students who are mothers and fathers is very large; and also in the field of mental health, in view of the high rate of students who have depression, anxiety and suicide among black youth, there are mental health care policies as well”

he pointed out.

Even with the difficulties, according to Bárbara Barboza, the number of black women in public universities is the majority among genders from the point of view of permanence, including access to graduate school. “Black women in Brazil have, despite the setbacks, a very high educational quality that confronts this challenge of being within the context of Brazilian education”she said, adding that the rise of black women in universities has been registered over the last ten years, a period that coincides with the application of the Quota Law.

“Women like Renata Souza, Jane Santos and like Estefane Silva are women who, being in movements and in graduate school at public universities, end up generating permanence because they are very articulate. This is a big gain coming from affirmative action policies.”

noted.

The round of conversations was organized by Oxfam Brasil, an acronym for the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (Oxford Committee for the Relief of Hunger), in partnership with the Afro-Latinas Institute through the Latinidades Festival.

Festival

Considered today the largest festival for black women in Latin America, Latinidades was created in 2008 and during this period involved all Brazilian regions and registered growing international participation with more than 20 countries. “A continuous initiative to promote gender equality and a platform for training and boosting the trajectories of black women in the most diverse fields of activity”reveals the site of the festival.

*With information from Agência Brasil

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