MEC wants an end to military schools and gender ideology

The Lula government’s ideological agenda for education is already coming to fruition, as shown in the document that will serve as the basis for discussions at the National Education Conference (Conae), to be held in January. Promotion of gender ideology, brake on the advancement of home education and opposition to agribusiness in the classroom are some of the numerous points set out in the material that was released by the Presidency of the Republic and the MEC last Wednesday (18).

Conae’s objective is to raise proposals for the National Education Plan (PNE), which should guide public policies in the area from 2024 to 2034. Instead of strategies to improve the quality of education in the country, the text is full of political questions. -ideological, including even union agendas such as minimum teacher salaries.

The material proposes that the National Education System (SNE) foster institutional conditions that allow the debate and promotion of diversity “of gender and sexual orientation”, suggesting the formulation of “specific pedagogical and management policies for this purpose”. Elsewhere, he considers the need for an urgent opposition to “ultra-conservative policies and proposals”, guaranteeing the “demilitarization of schools”, “the brake on the advancement of homeschooling” and “the interventions of the Escola Sem Partido movement and the various groups that wish to promote agribusiness through education”.

Criticism of quality standards and low leveling

“The political part came in, but the part that left was precisely the quality of education”, comments Anamaria Camargo, master in education and executive director of Instituto Livre pra Escolher. The expert explains that goal 7 of the PNE, which stipulates specific quality standards, is harshly criticized in this base document. According to her, “a good part of this political and ideological agenda that is in this document brings practices that go against what is already proven to be beneficial for education”.

“It is an education plan to have no effective metrics for learning and performance. They explicitly say that this should not be measured”, explains Camargo. The text states that “Goal 7, by linking quality to an understanding of assessment, which prioritizes standardized tests and chooses the results of student performance as synonymous with quality, does not contribute to this educational purpose”.

For the developers, educational quality is linked to social issues of minorities. “What they call the social quality of education is to see if there are teachers specialized in quilombola education, in MST field education, in promoting the diversity of sexual orientation”, he comments.

The issue of equity is another point that Camargo believes deserves attention. “When you talk about equity in education, you are talking about equality of results. It does not mean equal opportunities”, he explains. For the specialist, the more academic demands – offering the necessary inputs – and the more demands in relation to student behavior, the better the results.

Marginalized children and adolescents must be even more required by teachers to get closer to the results of those ahead. But, according to her, the document goes in the opposite direction by demanding less from the entire group of students, to include those who are socially vulnerable. “It’s about leveling education as low as possible”, he concludes.

New secondary education is treated as a “neoliberal agenda”

The text explicitly calls for the repeal of policies such as the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC), the National Common Training Base and the reform of the new secondary education, which are treated as “neoliberal agendas”. The implementation of the new secondary education was suspended for 60 days by the Ministry of Education in April this year, due to political interests, as shown by the People’s Gazette. Teachers under the current government would not be satisfied with the loss of workload and the need for more training.

Initially, the basic itineraries would not include subjects such as sociology and philosophy, which was also criticized in Conae’s base document. The text says it explicitly opposes the removal of “very important subjects for full training and citizenship, such as sociology, philosophy and arts” from the curriculum.

Opposition to agriculture and union agendas

The idea of ​​opposing the promotion of agribusiness may be a response to the work of the NGO “De Olho no Material”, created by a group that calls itself “mothers of agribusiness”. The NGO’s proposal is to combat distortions in content about agribusiness in textbooks and request the correction of this misinformation. Membership of the NGO has seen considerable growth since it was founded in 2021. According to its organizers, the number of members has increased by 158%.

The National Education Forum was responsible for coordinating the formulation of the document. The team included representatives from more than 50 institutions, including MST, CUT, UNE, CNTE and ABGLT. MEC secretariats, local authorities, bodies and sector entities such as Inep, Capes and Undime also participated. With the considerable involvement of unions, one of the axes is focused on the agendas of these associations, such as the valorization of education professionals by guaranteeing the right to a “minimum salary and career and the conditions for exercising the profession and health”.

Next steps

Conae’s base document is already being discussed at municipal, state and national levels by the community involved in the sector. The municipal stages run until October 28th and the state stages should take place between November 6th and 19th, according to the MEC. Anamaria Camargos suggests that citizens seek to actively participate in regional meetings which, according to her, are being little publicized.

“Civil society needs to organize itself in a more disruptive way. Children will learn less and less if society does not organize itself to serve these children and teach them in some way”, says the expert.

The national stage is scheduled to take place from January 28th to 30th in Brasília. After completion at Conae, the suggestions must go to the MEC for the formulation of the final text that will still be considered in Congress.