Opinion – I am Science: For the end of the cuts to the Federal Universities

In our last text published on the Blog SoU_Ciência, we wrote about blocking the budget of 5.8% of universities. While the country was going to the polls on Sunday, the federal government was trying to deliver another coup, expanding the sequence of cuts experienced in the last 4 years and which has been making our universities and federal institutes unfeasible.

After a great movement of dissatisfaction, the MEC announced that it will return the funds that had been withdrawn from the universities’ accounts. He still hasn’t said how or when he will do that.

This is one more measure, among countless others, that culminated in a year-end and presidential term that has consistently worked to destroy federal universities and institutes. Therefore, we show here the historical series of federal university budgets over the last 4 years and which show that the retreat of the MEC, made after the negative repercussion of the blockade, was, in fact, electoral.

The chart below shows the amounts of Other Current Expenses are current resources, applied to expenses with contracts for the provision of various services (maintenance, security, cleaning), payment of water, electricity and various gases, acquisition of consumables , per diems, tickets, transportation, scholarships and student benefits, including university restaurants. The values ​​are deflated by the IPCA of the year evaluated.

The percentage changes in the same period show the huge drop, the year 2019 was compared with the previous year and so on, reaching a negative change of 45% in 2021.

The situation regarding Investment resources was even worse, as in 2018 they were 288 million and reached 35 million in 2021. These Investment resources are applied to the assets of Universities, such as the acquisition of real estate and land, projects and new works , renovations, installations and acquisition of equipment, computers, books and permanent materials, incorporated, therefore, to the Institutions.

In relation to 2022, data from Andifes (Association of Directors of Federal Institutions of Higher Education) showed that there was a 7.2% cut in the 2022 global budget compared to the 2021 budget. At the end of 2022, comparisons will be more accurate because we will be able to observe what was actually released, showing an even greater cut than what was made in the budget.

When analyzing the Panel “The Financing of Science and Technology in Brazil”, we verify the historical series of the same investments and we can see how universities grew and were the spearhead of the country’s development, mainly between 2006 and 2014, when Brazil registered also the highest rates of economic and social growth.

Below, we present the same data, to show the drop in Other Current Expenses resources along with the increase in undergraduate enrollments.

When analyzing undergraduate enrollments in federal universities, in the same period, we found that between the years 2006 to 2014, we have a great increase, evidencing the importance of the application of resources. It is important to note that expansion began to be stagnated in 2016. The situation was exacerbated by the pandemic and the drop in student assistance, with the loss of more than 100,000 students.

The Investment situation reinforces this situation, with a 96% drop in the same period.

It is worth noting that in 2016, Constitutional Amendment No. 95 was approved, which established a ceiling on public spending for 20 years, making the minimum federal spending on education of 18% of net tax revenue practically ineffective. Investment was frozen at the level of 2017, with a forecast of readjustment for inflation. The setbacks don’t stop there. In 2018, the IFES suffered another intervention in their financial management autonomy when they were prohibited from carrying out their own collection, when the amount calculated was greater than that established in the Annual Budget Law (Ordinance No. 1,428, 02/05/2018)

According to Folha de S. Paulo, “with the economic crisis, which caused the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to melt 7% in 2015 and 2016, the MEC’s ​​budget recorded an accumulated retraction of 6% from 2015 to 2018, in adjusted values by inflation”.

Between 2006 and 2016, there was also an increase in Graduate Studies, where 80% of research is carried out. Adding the Federal (57.1%) and State (24.5%) Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) we have 81.6% of the Programs.

In a global view, the data clearly show the sharp drop in the resources of federal universities, which are great producers of knowledge from research in all areas. These same institutions showed great resilience and ability to achieve. The performance in numerous stocks during the Covid-19 pandemic is evident. In addition, among the best Brazilian universities, according to various rankings, the vast majority are public institutions. Teachers, technicians and students are still steadfast and fighting to keep universities open, but we don’t know for how long. For these reasons, the movement against cuts in universities and education continues and should mobilize Society so that a new project is possible.