Tarcísio rules out changing Education Secretary: “extremely prepared”

The governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), ruled out the possibility of replacing his Secretary of Education, Renato Feder, and classified him as “extremely prepared, studious, enthusiastic and idealistic” to the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo. Feder was criticized after giving up receiving 10 million textbooks made available by the Ministry of Education (MEC) for the 2024 school year.

“It is not an unreasonable decision. It was just miscommunicated. She makes a lot of sense. There is a logic that they were unable to explain”, defended the governor. According to him, students will have access to slides designed by teachers in the classroom and a printed textbook with in-depth content.

“We are going to print centrally and distribute this material to schools. So, the student will have the tablet and the printed material available. It goes according to the taste of the customer”, said Freitas.

The São Paulo government would not pay anything for the didactic material offered by the MEC, which would be purchased and delivered by the federal government. After the Secretary of Education announced that he would refuse the copies, the Public Ministry of São Paulo opened an inquiry to investigate the cost and quality of the material that the Tarcísio government wants to use.

On Friday (4), the Estadão revealed that Feder is investigated for conflict of interests due to contracts of more than R$ 75 million that his secretary maintains with Multilaser for the purchase of 97 thousand notebooks for the state public network. He is a partner in an offshore company that owns 28.16% of the company’s shares.

Regarding the contracts, the governor said that the government of São Paulo “already bought Multilaser before his administration and his government did not buy anything from the company”.