Knowledge budget shrank by R$117 billion in 10 years – 12/10/2023 – Education

Target of successive cuts in recent years, the federal budget for higher education and science in the country shrank by R$117 billion in the last decade. Together, the two areas, which are responsible for knowledge production in Brazil, are expected to receive R$19.07 billion next year, half of what they received in 2014.

Upon assuming the federal government, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) promised the resumption of investments in science and technology. After obtaining a larger budget for the area in 2023, the PT administration again presented a lower budget forecast for 2024.

Together, the two areas, which had R$38 billion available in 2014, should receive R$19.07 billion next year — R$890 million less than this year. The value shows a slight recovery in the knowledge budget since the worst amount was recorded, when R$15.8 billion were allocated in 2021, during the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government.

The survey was carried out by the Observatory of Knowledge, a network formed by associations of professors from universities across the country, with data available in Siop (Integrated Planning and Budget System), of the Ministry of Planning. The values ​​were corrected to 2023 prices, based on the IPCA observed until 2022 and the forecasts for 2023 and 2024 by the Central Bank’s Focus report, released at the end of September.

The researchers calculate that, if the 2014 budget were completely repeated in 2024, an additional R$86 billion would be needed to compensate for the losses that occurred between 2015 and 2023 — which total R$117 billion, according to the corrected values.

Scientific and academic entities are concerned that the recovery of funds guaranteed at the beginning of this year is not scheduled for 2024. After a series of cuts, they argue that the area needs an urgent effort to recover and, thus, avoid even more damage to important research for the country’s future, such as that on climate change.

They also remember that the country has followed the opposite trajectory in recent years from an international perspective. According to the UNESCO Science Report, global investment in science and technology increased by approximately 20% between 2014 and 2018.

The observatory’s study identified that the budget drop for knowledge is driven by the drop in resources for federal universities, which participate in more than half of the country’s scientific production, and for Capes, the agency that is one of the main responsible for promoting knowledge. science in Brazil.

The PLOA (Budget Bill) for 2024, presented by the government, allocates R$6.85 billion to the country’s 69 federal universities — R$900 million less than in 2023. This amount represents less than half (44%) than the federal network had available in 2014, when there were only 59 educational institutions to share the resource.

“The budget reduction for higher education occurs not only at a time of expansion in the number of institutions, but also of an increase in students and a change in the profile of entrants that has brought a series of new demands for financial resources”, says Mayra Goulart , president of the observatory.

Today, more than 70% of students at federal universities come from families with a per capita family income of up to 1.5 minimum wages. Therefore, institutions need to allocate much more resources to guarantee students’ permanence until the end of the course, with scholarships, meal subsidies and transportation and housing assistance.

“Universities have not only lost resources in the last decade, but they also have to meet this demand that the change in student profile has brought. Allocating money for retention actions is also supporting the production of knowledge and research. Therefore, they need to less than rebuilding the budget they had years ago”, says Goulart, who is a professor at UFRJ.

For next year, the PLOA plans to allocate R$1.27 billion to Pnaes (National Student Assistance Program) — R$190 million more than expected for this year. Even with the recomposition, the value for 2024 is far from what the program already had. In 2015, the year with the peak of resources for the area, it reached R$1.48 billion.

The survey also identified that Capes has a lower budget forecast for next year, with R$5.30 billion, R$120 million less than this year. The reduction generated astonishment as one of President Lula’s first actions was to announce the readjustment of the value of scholarships paid by Capes for master’s and doctorate degrees in the country, which had been frozen for nine years.

Both federal universities and Capes have their budget linked to the Ministry of Education, which is also responsible for financing basic education.

“A discourse has gained strength in the country in recent years that spending on universities takes money away from public schools. And that this would be the cause of our poor results in basic education. This is a mistaken view, because it does not think of education as a system. It is in higher education that teachers are trained, that research is produced that collaborates with teaching”, says Goulart.

While institutions linked to the MEC are expected to have fewer resources for next year, the MCTI (Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation) has a more significant recovery trajectory. For 2024, the PLOA foresees R$8.27 billion in expenditure for science — R$1.12 billion more than this year.

“A large part of this resource comes from the defunding of the FNDCT [Fundo Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico]which had been blocked through an MP [medida provisória durante o governo de Jair Bolsonaro”, explica a economista Letícia Inácio, uma das pesquisadoras que elaborou o levantamento.

Em nota, o MCTI destacou o descontingenciamento do fundo. “Com a medida, o FNDCT passou a dispor de R$ 4,9 bilhões em recursos não reembolsáveis para investimentos”, disse a pasta. Procurado, o MEC não respondeu até o início da noite de sexta (8) sobre a queda na previsão orçamentária.