Opinion – Sou Ciência: Universities have changed color

The photos of graduating classes from federal universities are changing color from year to year. Especially in the most competitive careers, such as medicine, white coats are increasingly being worn by black bodies. And, in addition to them, more than 50% of students in all courses came from public schools, were born through the SUS, use public transport and do not live in the bubbles of condominiums and private services exclusive to the upper income classes. The change in this profile of the student body is also one of mentalities, knowledge, life experiences and differences in individual and collective expectations about the profession and the country. Let us remember that those who suffered the most in the pandemic and with the dismantling of public services, as shown by a study by Unifesp in Greater São Paulo, were the poorest and blackest. And, therefore, they, in addition to women and young people, form the part of the population that is most critical of the Bolsonaro government and that expressly voted for a different future.

Young people, black people, from lower-income families, from peripheral areas or from rural areas are today changing the face and history of the university system in all regions of the country. And this democratization and qualitative change depends on the continuity of affirmative action policies, the improvement of the law, the adoption in postgraduate courses and the guarantee of reservation of vacancies in public tenders for blacks in effective positions of professors and technicians. After all, just as important as changing the profile of students is also the profile of teachers.

As a result of a long process of struggles, mainly by black movements, the pioneering higher education institutions in the implementation of reserved places for blacks, indigenous people, graduates of public basic education schools and people with disabilities were the State Universities of Rio de Janeiro (2001) and Bahia (2002). These institutions, along with social movements, paved the way for other public universities to adopt their own quota policies and increase the number of vacancies they offered in undergraduate courses.

It was these experiences that also made evident the need to adopt a broader and more consistent set of affirmative actions, as a way of realizing the right to this level of education, such as investments in assistance and student permanence.

In 2012, as a result of continuous popular mobilization, it was the turn of the federal government to enact Law 12,711, which regulated the reservation of vacancies for admission to the Federal Institutions of Higher Education (IFES). The quotas were intended for graduates of public high schools, additionally self-declared black, brown or indigenous and/or with a per capita family income of up to one and a half minimum wages. The reservation of 50% of vacancies provided for by law was fully achieved for admission in 2016. More recently, these quotas also included people with disabilities.

Important facts resulted from this set of actions: promoting greater diversity among undergraduates and increasing the quality of education in university courses. Recent studies by SoU_Ciência clearly show that, until 2012, the public enrolled in federal universities was much less diverse compared to the present in 2019 – the last year with the complete base of the Higher Education Census that SoU_Ciência preserved -, that is, it was because effect of the Quota Law that there was a substantial change in this scenario.

The performance of young people entering by quotas, we noticed that the difference between quota students and non-quota students, when it exists, is very small in all courses. The permanence rate is also equivalent, despite all the underlying difficulties in life as a low-income student – ​​hence the importance of permanence aid policies.

In our Proposals document for Higher Education, Science and Technology in National Reconstruction we defend:

1. THEenlargement of the policy of quotas for graduation and its extension to post-graduation. In the post, we observed that it is necessary to follow the same principle of the racial sub-quota (which follows the proportion of the population of each state), in view of our analyzes on the ethnic-racial profile of the occupation of the admission vacancies in the IFES: they evidenced that the increase in the black, brown and indigenous population in graduation is unequivocally linked to the adoption of the racial sub-quota.

2. To ensure that vacancies are actually accessed by the population that is entitled to them, it is necessary to include in the body of the law the obligation to set up hetero-identification commissions in Universities, which are made up of blacks, browns, indigenous peoples and quilombolas;

3. It is essential to setting a minimum percentage, separately, for the entry of indigenous people and quilombolas, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Institutions also need to consider vacancies for refugees;

4. To gain real concreteness, all these measures need to be accompanied by budget provision for permanence allowances aimed at students who need them and student housing policies;

5. The adoption of quotas by all public institutions of higher education in the federal network, including ITA and AMAN, and incentives for state networks. In 2019, state universities throughout Brazil still had a low contingent of quota students, around 17% (while the Federal ones are at 50%);

6. Urgent reissue of Federal Law 12.990/2014, scheduled to expire in 2024. This law guarantees the reservation of 20% of vacancies for blacks when entering public service, which includes university professors🇧🇷 In the reissue, it is necessary to regulate the adoption of the quota in teaching competitions, to curb strategies for non-compliance, which unfortunately occur.

The careful evaluation of affirmative actions has shown the impact and importance of these policies to combat historical social, racial and school inequality in our country. However, alongside the achievements of access to universities, it is increasingly necessary to expand affirmative policies aimed at the professional insertion of young people, in public and private companies, in order to face the low rates of access to the formal labor market, in times of structural unemployment and flexibilization of labor relations.

The reconstruction of Brazil on new bases, which we will experience in the coming years (or decades), will gain enormously from the active participation of young people who entered public universities by quotas and are prepared and eager to build a fairer, more solidary, democratic and sustainable country. .