NGOs accuse Porto Seguro of separating scholarship holders from payers – 04/15/2024 – Education

This Monday (15), a group of NGOs linked to the black movement and the area of ​​education filed a lawsuit against Colégio Porto Seguro, one of the most traditional in São Paulo.

The entities — Educafro, Ponteduca and Anced Brasil — say that the school segregates scholarship students from paying students and, therefore, they are asking for compensation of R$15 million for collective and social moral damages, in addition to the adoption of measures to promote racial equity and social.

At the end of 2022, Educafro and Ponteduca had filed a request for extra-judicial conciliation with the school. They claim that the meetings had no effect and that, therefore, they decided to open the process.

In a note, the school refutes the accusation of discrimination and different treatment of students. The text states that the institution “works to promote equity for the entire school community and has welcomed scholarship students from low-income families for more than 60 years.”

The NGOs state that scholarship holders are prohibited from entering the facilities of paying units without prior authorization.

Furthermore, they say that traditional events, such as June festivals, are held at different times so that paying students and scholarship holders do not share the same environment.

They also state that extracurricular activities are different and that scholarship holders do not have access to the bilingual and international curriculum, an option available to paying students.

The request for conciliation, in 2022, came after the revelation that students at the Porto Seguro unit in Valinhos, in the interior of the state, exchanged messages with Nazi, racist and xenophobic expressions. Eight students were expelled due to the case.

The granting of scholarships allows the school to receive a tax rebate for having the Cebas (Certificate of Social Assistance Charitable Entity), granted by the Ministry of Education. The organizations allege that the school violates the law, which states in part that: “any discrimination or difference in treatment between scholarship and paying students is prohibited.”

In a note, the organizations state that “people on scholarships from the institution’s five units, which make up 17% of the total number of students, experience a true ‘apartheid’, a regime of racial separation that occurred in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, which privileged white elite”.

The school, founded 144 years ago, created the so-called Community School in 1966 to serve poor students. Today, around 1,600 low-income students receive full scholarships divided between basic education and education for young people and adults. In addition to the vacancies, they receive uniforms, school supplies and food free of charge.

In a note, the school mentions that it maintains community-oriented activities on two campuses and offers regular teaching and education for young people and adults.

Until 2020, paying and non-paying students studied in the same unit, located in Morumbi (west zone of São Paulo), but this changed when all scholarship holders started to study in another building in Vila Andrade (south zone). The two units are separated by approximately four kilometers.

The change, according to Porto Seguro, happened because the new unit is in a more accessible location for residents of Paraisópolis and Vila Andrade, neighborhoods where most of the scholarship recipients come from. The NGOs say that students from both locations can access the Morumbi unit.

The college states that scholarship students stand out with approvals at top public and private universities, in Brazil and abroad.

Last year, 177 of them passed entrance exams, 30 of which in Brazilian public institutions. In addition, four were approved at universities abroad, such as the Helios Klinikun University Bonn/Rhein-Sieg, in Germany.

The institution also mentions that the average grade of these scholarship students in writing in the Enem (National High School Exam) of 2023 was 805.7 points, above the national average of 641.6 points.