Project that gives more transparency in education goes to the Senate

The bill that creates mechanisms for public transparency and social control in the area of ​​education, authored by federal deputy Tabata Amaral (PSB-SP), was approved by the Chamber of Deputies, this Wednesday (16). The approved proposal replaces the rapporteur, deputy Professor Goreth (PDT-AP), and will be sent to the Senate.

The text requires the government to make available a series of information regarding the federal, state, district and municipal education systems, by electronic means.

The data that must be informed are:

• number of vacancies available and filled by educational institution, waiting list and reservation of vacancies;
• scholarships and grants for study and research granted to students, researchers or professors;
• statistics related to school flow and performance;
• completed and ongoing research, extension and technological innovation activities or projects, in the case of higher education institutions;
• physical and financial execution of programs, projects and activities aimed at basic and higher education financed with public resources, tax breaks or tax, financial or credit subsidies;
• professional and academic curriculum of occupants of management positions in educational institutions and members of education councils, in compliance with the General Data Protection Law;
• agendas and minutes of meetings of the National Council of Education and of the education councils of the states and the Federal District.

Expenditures and revenues with maintenance and development in Education should also be reported by governments on the internet. Specifically, data relating to own revenues, agreements or donations must be published; the management and execution of Fundeb resources and all transfers of public resources to educational institutions.

The proposal also foresees that community, denominational or philanthropic schools must make public funds received widely publicized on the internet, and cannot have as directors people (or relatives) who hold public office.

In justifying the project, Congresswoman Tabata alleges that the current Law of Guidelines and Base for National Education (LDB) has few provisions on the management and execution of public policies. In addition, she cites that the law that creates the National Council of Education and its chambers is not very clear about the transparency of its activities and functioning.

Another determination of the proposal is that the full meetings of the National Council of Education (CNE) and its chambers are open and transmitted over the internet, with electronic availability of documents.

The project was developed in partnership with the organization Ficam Sabendo, which is an independent data agency specialized in the Law on Access to Information (LAI). “Our mission is to fight to reveal data and documents hidden from society, while forming citizens capable of exercising control over public resources and services”, says the organization.

If the proposal is approved by the Senate and sanctioned by the President of the Republic, the federal entities will have one year to comply with the disclosure of information.

PL can prevent misuse of public resources

The entity Transparência Brasil, which promotes the social control of the public power, evaluates the project as “important” for specifying and explaining the disclosure of information on public education policies, “as a complement to the Laws of Access to Information and Transparency”.

“If sanctioned, the text will reduce or eliminate any excuses for ignoring the obligation to actively make information available”, explains the entity.

According to the entity, it is necessary to make this type of information more accessible to the school community, bearing in mind that, depending on what you want to verify, “it is necessary to resort to more than one source of information, which makes social control of students more difficult. spending”.

“Today, finding this data in transparency portals depends on a certain degree of familiarity with the budget execution process and with the technical language of public administration. In medium and small municipalities, the availability of data is a problem”, complements.

Regarding the requirements for philanthropic schools, the Transparency entity assesses that “it is important to establish criteria for the relationship of these schools with the public power. It is a very positive point in terms of guaranteeing the integrity of the State and avoiding favoritism or conflict of interests”. They also add that “requiring more transparency in the application of public resources transferred to them is also a necessary step so that social control of these transfers can be carried out and avoid misuse”.

For Ilona Becskeházy, doctor in education and former secretary of the Ministry of Education (MEC), the project does not change much of what is already done today. However, she points out that “we didn’t ask to show the curriculum of those who evaluate the National Book and Teaching Material Program (PNLD), for example”.