President of Inep countered criticism of Enem: “it does not demonize agribusiness”

The president of the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Inep), Manuel Palácios, countered a series of criticisms about this year’s National High School Examination (Enem), in a hearing of the Education Commission in the Chamber of Deputies, this Wednesday -Friday (8).

His call was presented by opposition deputies and the agribusiness bench, who asked for the suspension of three Enem questions, one of them for associating agribusiness with violence in the countryside and the advance of deforestation.

For deputy Adriana Ventura (Novo-SP), the test treats agribusiness in a pejorative way, which plays a relevant role in Brazil’s GDP. “The evidence has many distortions, it has an absurd ideological bias”, she criticized. “What we saw in this test was a litany of questions confronting agriculture and capitalism on an absurd and, in my view, Machiavellian scale”, she added.

Regarding criticism of agribusiness, Palácios denied any “demonization” of the sector. “Enem does not demonize agribusiness, Inep does not demonize agribusiness, that is obvious, it is not a relevant topic in this discussion,” he said.

The Inep representative also reported that the selection of supporting texts, in the Enem statements, “obeys strict technical criteria” and denied any “ideological bias”. According to Palácios, the objective of the questions is simply to “reveal the student’s understanding of the text cited”.

He also stated that the test items are prepared by basic education and university teachers selected through a public call. The notice that selected the developers for Enem 2023 was made in 2020, during the Bolsonaro government.

“We are talking about teachers who were selected in 2020 and who are still carrying out this activity today. If there is some kind of biased selection, it has been biased for a long time,” said Palácios.

When rebutting the president of Inep, deputy Abilio Brunini (PL-MT), he stated that Enem “had a clear interest in creating ideological distortion”, to select left-wing activists for universities. “If you defend agriculture in this test, you disapprove,” he said.

Deputy Zucco (Republicanos-RS) also reinforced that “the government transformed the Enem into a doctrinal test on racism, feminism, military dictatorship and gender violence”. He criticized the citation of left-wing authors in the test and said that it is not balanced with the citation of conservative authors

Regarding the topic of the essay, which questioned the challenges faced by women, the president of INEP said that “racism is a crime and feminism is not a doctrine”. “It doesn’t seem to me that items that highlight issues relating to racial discrimination or discrimination against women are doctrinal,” he mentioned.

The Minister of Education, Camilo Santana, will also be summoned to clarify criticisms about Enem, in a joint public hearing of the Education committees; Financial Inspection and Control; and Agriculture, on the 22nd.