Digital Textbooks and PNLD: the war in São Paulo – 08/18/2023 – Sou Ciência

Earlier this month, the Secretary of Education of the State of São Paulo communicated the non-adherence of the São Paulo state network to the National Textbook Program (PNLD), which makes books available to all Brazilian public schools with Union funds, via the National Education Fund. Development of Education (MEC autarchy). In its place, next year, students will only have the “own material” in digital format for high school and the final years of elementary school, acquired without bidding.

This decision was received by educators and specialists with severe criticism, in addition to giving rise to an inquiry at the State Public Ministry (MPE) to investigate the government’s decision in detail. The deliberation also goes against the grain of Unesco’s recommendations and what happens in super developed countries, such as Sweden, which gave up this path for having identified, among other things, an association between the use of digital materials and the drop in children’s performance. in reading, health problems related to increased time in front of screens, difficulty for parents and guardians to help with schoolwork, and evidence that physical books positively impact the cognitive development of children and adolescents.

In view of the general outcry, Tarcísio’s management retreated, but little. It gave up adopting exclusively the digital version of the books. He presented as an alternative, questionable to say the least, the possibility of printing the digital material for those students who preferred the printed format, with the justification of guaranteeing the content “coherent with the São Paulo curriculum”.

This week, the Secretary of Education, Renato Feder, took a step back: he announced that digital books would be printed for all students, even though the lack of technological equipment and supplies (such as toner and paper) in schools in the network. The misuse of public resources is evident there: instead of printing on a large scale in specialized graphics, having the didactic material printed on the dilapidated printers of each school is an affront to the principle of efficiency and economy of public administration.

But what is the PNLD, a program snubbed by the São Paulo government?

One of the largest incentive programs for Basic Education, the PNLD aims to evaluate and make available didactic, pedagogical and literary works, in addition to other forms of support for educational institutions. For a book to be approved by the Program, it must be submitted and evaluated by MEC coordinators, based on specific Technical Commissions made up of specialists from different areas of knowledge. Subjected to rigid and solid evaluation processes, the quality of the book is assessed before it is made available to educational establishments.

As a result, the structure of the PNLD has contributed for more than 20 years to improving the quality of didactic and paradidactic materials intended for all basic education. In the current year, the Program benefited almost 31 million students and their teachers, in state, municipal and federal public networks, with didactic and literary books.

In addition to common physical books and in Braille, the Program also makes available the volumes in digital and interactive format, manuals for teachers and EPUB for the population with blindness, low vision and dyslexia. For 2024, 92 different collections were approved, in the areas of Arts (12), Sciences (14), Physical Education (1), Geography (16), History (14), English Language (11), Portuguese Language (11) and Mathematics (13). These collections are freely chosen by the teachers and pedagogical teams of the schools, thus in tune with the political-pedagogical project of the respective institutions.

Each stage of basic education is fully covered by the Program in one year: early childhood education was in 2022, the initial years of elementary school in the current year, the final years of elementary school will be in 2024 and secondary education in the following year. When not met in a given year, the different stages receive books from the Program as a complement.

Alongside ways to encourage textbooks, the importance of childhood and adolescence is known for building healthy habits, such as reading. The exploration of the materiality of the book, creativity, imagination and learning itself and taste for reading occur through this object. More than a decoding of signs, it is in the act of reading that the ability to understand the meanings of a text and its symbolic meaning is developed. In Brazil, the process of training reading and readers takes place fundamentally in the school environment, with the mediation of teachers and with access to existing books in schools.

In view of this, it is worth questioning the reasons why the current government of São Paulo gave up a Program, sponsored by the federal government for years, and which, therefore, does not impact the State budget, to use part of its own resources acquiring material digital file that will additionally have to be printed, multiplying the cost for using the same resource.

Furthermore, it is not clear whether or how this “own material” adopted undergoes evaluation processes, as occurs in the PNLD, what is its quality and alignment with the pedagogical projects. On the one hand, Governor Tarcísio invests in ideological warfare, implying that the material produced nationally and distributed by the “leftist” federal government would imply indoctrination or all the other fantasies of moral panic that move the extreme right base and that have already fed the Escola sem Partido. The war on books is one of the characteristics not only of Bolsonarism, but of Nazi-fascism.

On the other hand, although the justification of the current management claims the defense of the quality of education in São Paulo and the coherence of its curriculum, it is possible to perceive, by the high volume of resources involved (which can reach R$ 15.21 million) in the purchase of this material and equipment to access it, involving more than 5,300 schools and 3.5 million students, who in this decision are increasingly visible the economic interests and, more than that, patrimonialist.

Considering that the use of digital material depends on equipment, such as cell phones, tablets and notebooks, this aroused the interest of the São Paulo Attorney General’s Office, which began an investigation into a possible conflict of interests of the current Secretary of Education. One of his companies, Multilaser, which sells this type of equipment, signed millionaire contracts with Pasta at the end of last year, when Renato Feder had already been confirmed to take over. On Wednesday night, after a request from parliamentarians, Justice determined in a preliminary decision that the government immediately return to the PNLD.

Meanwhile, the citizen of São Paulo watches the imbroglio astonished, imagining what is to come in the largest Brazilian education network. The attempt to put an end to physical books in schools, to cut off the teachers’ freedom of choice and the millionaire and expendable expenses of the São Paulo budget, in addition to representing damage to our children and young people, clearly show the fingerprints of the new management: the ideological war and business gains even more primacy over the public education network in São Paulo.