Opinion – Pedro Hallal: Corruption in the Ministry of Education

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If the Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t enough, in which Brazil has a mortality five times higher than the world average…

If unemployment of 11% was not enough, one of the highest in recent times…

If the return of the specter of inflation weren’t enough, estimated at 7% recently…

If fuel prices weren’t enough, which reach record levels, harm workers and companies, and hinder the country’s development…

If the electricity bill wasn’t enough, one of the most expensive in the world…

Brazil still has to live with a staggering scandal in the Ministry of Education, which led to the departure of the holder of the portfolio. But for readers to understand this script that looks more like a mixture of horror, comedy and fiction, it is necessary to remember the history of the current government in relation to education.

The current government was elected with a speech against education, based on a lie told a thousand times (but still a lie) that there was a domination of “communists” in all educational spaces. Even before they were elected, people who are in government today funded a ridiculous project called “School Without Party”, which on the surface used a speech that teachers needed to be neutral, but in the depths wanted teachers to be indoctrinated in flat-Earther methods and deniers. This is so true that, soon after being elected, the current government began to interfere in universities, appointing deans who were not elected in their communities, as long as they “prayed” the government’s flat earth and denialist primer.

The guru of the Brazilian government’s educational project passed away from Covid-19, a disease that he denied existed and for which there was a vaccine. In fact, a vaccine that was developed in record time, in one of the greatest feats of science in history.

During the entire period of the current government, these were the oddities that dominated the news. We went to the extreme of living with a Minister of Education who hated education and who, whenever he referred to public universities, an educational heritage of the country, used words like “buzz”, fantasized about drug plantations and spread hatred.

What has now been revealed is that the oddities were, in fact, smokescreens for the real education project of the current government: corruption.

The budget cuts, which make scientific research in the country unfeasible…

The scholarship cuts, which make our top talent go abroad…

Budget cuts, which scrap the universities that formed the greatest leaders in Brazil…

The attacks on universities, which in recent years have gained the face of the people…

This whole project hid the worst thing about Brazilian politics: a corruption scheme that is starting to collapse. Among gold bars, pastors, infidelities and bribes, the money from Brazilian education was distancing itself from our children and filling the pockets of those who defend an education for the few, the same ones who defend weapons instead of books.

Are we going to wait for the school shootings to start, killing our children, to realize that this project is not for Brazil?

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