USP Rectory threatens to fail striking students – 10/26/2023 – Education

To put pressure on students to put an end to the strike that lasts more than five weeks, the rectory of USP (University of São Paulo) determined that units cannot change the academic calendar and must not pay for absences recorded during the period of interruption of classes.

In practice, the measure could lead to the automatic failure of students in courses where the strike has not yet ended. After gaining the support of teachers and most USP units, this Thursday (26) the strike continues only at FFLCH (Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences) and EACH (School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities) .

Teachers and students from other units decided to end the strike after rector Carlos Gilberto Carlotti Júnior announced the hiring of 148 temporary teachers, with priority given to courses with the greatest teaching shortage.

If the strike continues at FFLCH and EACH until the end of this week, these units will complete six weeks without classes and, from then on, it would no longer be possible to guarantee the minimum attendance percentage for approval, of 70%.

The president of the FFLCH graduation committee, professor Eduardo Girotto, sent a letter to the rector asking for the determination to be reviewed.

“The aforementioned measure could produce an imminent collapse of the organization of undergraduate activities in the next academic semester. For example, students who fail in subjects that are a prerequisite for others offered in the following semester will not be able to enroll, producing a cascade effect of backlog of enrollments”, he says.

The teacher requests authorization for FFLCH to prepare, after the return of activities, a schedule to replace classes missed during the strike.

For the DCE (Central Student Directory), the rectory’s determination that units not change the academic calendar is a strategy to pressure students to end the strike.

“The rectory had committed to giving autonomy to the units to define whether they would restore activities or how they would count attendance. Now, the rectory has given this deliberation, which is an attempt to force an end to the strike. This decision is a message: or return or they will be rejected”, says Davi Barbosa, director of the DCE.

Students claim that the measure could lead to mass failures in units that are still on strike, in addition to putting at risk the maintenance of permanence, research and internship grants for low-income students.

According to the rules of some of these scholarship programs, students lose the aid if they fail due to absence in a subject.

In a statement, the rectory says that it “always maintained dialogue with students” and that this stance led to the presentation of proposals to end the strike. “We reaffirm the commitments maintained in the negotiation and we thank the vast majority of students who understood and accepted what was discussed and agreed in the meetings”, adds the note.

It also states that the Dean of Undergraduate Studies sent a statement to the units on Tuesday (24) reiterating the maintenance of the calendar and that, if the strike continues for more than six weeks, students may fail due to absence.

The strike began on September 18th. Students mobilized to demand the replacement of teaching staff, as some courses had to cancel subjects due to a lack of teachers. They also included on the agenda the increase in aid for student permanence, structural improvements at USP Leste, promotion of indigenous entrance exams and appreciation of student rights.

Pressured by the students’ strike, which was supported by part of the teachers, the rectory announced three measures to meet the initial demand about hiring teachers. The rector, who until then defended the staggered replacement until 2025, recognized that the replacement occurred slowly.

He then authorized the anticipation of competitions, announced the immediate hiring of temporary teachers and authorized hiring to replace vacancies resulting from retirements in 2022.