Opinion – Cida Bento: The National Education System and generic inequality

An important action that social movements and civil society organizations should take the lead in the coming days is to support the institution of the SNE (National Education System).

About to be voted on in the Chamber, after being approved in the Senate, the SNE can enforce what was established in article 3 of the 1988 Constitution, that is, that, among the fundamental purposes of the democratic rule of law, there are the construction of a free, fair and solidary society, enabling the reduction of inequalities, regional disparities and discrimination that demean the dignity of the human person.

We have the unique opportunity to stop the process of producing inequalities in education, which, according to numerous studies, present daily in the headlines of the Brazilian mainstream media, impact the poorest people and regions of the country, especially black people, indigenous peoples, quilombolas and residents of peripheral neighborhoods.

Thus, after more than three decades since collaboration between the Union, states and municipalities in the area of ​​education was foreseen, it is finally possible to approve a complementary law that regulates dialogue, consensus and federative cooperation, favoring transparency, participation and social control in the institution of the SNE.

As professor and researcher Zara Figueiredo points out, “the regulation of article 23 of the Constitution, with the creation of the SNE, is an advance in the field of education that needs, however, to break with three major silences in the substitute voted on in the Senate: the socioeconomic and racial inequalities in education, the conceptual misconception between territories and inequalities, and the document’s fragile democratic anchoring, which does not provide for the participation of the educational community and social movements in the arenas of pacts within the SNE.

Here, it is worth mentioning that the reduction of educational inequalities is the central axis of both the SNE and the Fundeb (Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and for the Valorization of Education Professionals).

However, the approval of the system must already foresee which instruments will be used so that the gain related to the inclusion of inequality in the SNE is not lost in political and conceptual imprecision.

The inclusion of issues related to quilombola territories in the SNE text is correct and requires qualified action from the system, but does not eliminate the urgency of elaborating a policy focused on reducing racial inequalities.

It is in this sense that the figure of “generic inequality” does not interest us, as we need race and gender to be explicitly recognized in the text as structuring Brazilian educational inequalities, as evidenced by numerous studies.

Fighting against “all forms of discrimination and promoting the great diversity of Brazilian society” reflects basic principles of democracy, but cannot constitute arguments used as a way to deflate the weight of racial, ethnic and gender discrimination that structures inequalities in the parents.

And the participation of civil society organizations, explicitly recognized in the document, must be expanded to ensure quality in the design, monitoring and social control of the SNE.

Thus, it is now necessary to name these inequalities so that an educational system of the magnitude of the SNE is not born dead, incapable of altering the shameful place that Brazil occupies in the educational ranking of countries.

We can create a welcoming, attractive school, with adequate structures and equipment, with pedagogical material that respects the cultural multiplicity that marks Brazilian society, with valued and well-prepared education professionals. We can democratize educational opportunities. But we will have, first of all, to name the inequalities that we are going to face.