November 21, 2021
20:11
Marcela Leiros – Cenarium Magazine
MANAUS – The first day of the National High School Exam (Enem) this Sunday, 21, in Manaus, took students to schools with many expectations in the face of the current scenario that is the realization of the exam: second test amid the pandemic, the difficulties of remote teaching and, still, the crisis in the National Institute of Education and Research (Inep). In the capital of the state of Amazonas, the students still have to overcome other difficulties such as the distance between their homes and the exam application sites.
This is the reality of the nutritionist and indigenous descendant Gisele Marques, 38 years old. Unemployed for 10 years and resident of the Cacau Pirêra district, in Iranduba, a city located in the metropolitan region of Manaus, she had to face more than 30 kilometers to go from home to the Education Institute of Amazonas (IEA), in the downtown of the capital, to take the exam. Gisele told CENARIUM that her goal is to get a place in the Pedagogy course, resume her studies and have more job opportunities.
“I’m unemployed, so I want to go back to college to try other opportunities, because in my area I haven’t gotten any job yet and I’ve been unemployed for about 10 years”, she explained. “I have high hopes of getting this scholarship through Enem, because I can’t afford college. About Inep, I was also in doubt, afraid, but I believe that everything will be alright”, concluded the nutritionist.
The crisis in Inep began after requests for exoneration of 37 servers who held management positions in the body. The case started a series of allegations of interference and harassment in the institute, which pointed to a possible leak of the test content. In the face of the crisis, President Jair Bolsonaro (no party) said on Monday, 15, during a trip to Qatar, that the Enem questions began to have the “face of the government.
The concern with the content of the test worried a group of friends who were waiting in front of the IEA to take the test. They all agree that the leaking of the Enem exam could accentuate the educational disadvantages that already exist between private and public school students, for example, intensifying the damage that already existed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We could have made better use of our studies if it wasn’t for the pandemic, which put us in remote education. We already know that there is this difference between classes, that people with high income have an easier time with this, and people who don’t have so many resources are more difficult, they have to work harder, they have to study more. So these situations are very detrimental to us, who make a lot of effort to get here”, said student Jéssica Rocha, who is looking for a place in the Medicine course.
“This year they are also saying that the test has the ‘government’s face’ on it, it’s kind of worrisome, based on the current government….”, highlighted the student Élclis Araújo, who wants to study Administration, referring to the recent events in the federal management of Enem.
Crisis at INEP
The smoothness of the exam was put under suspicion after the departure of employees of Inep, which produces and coordinates Enem, at the beginning of November. In an interview with Fantástico, some of these servers, who preferred not to be identified, said that the organ suffers repeated political interference, and that cases of censorship of the content of the exams are not uncommon.
“Inep has always been directed by people who had some academic background. This president who is now (Danilo Dupas) is a person with no curriculum, no experience, He is there because the Minister of Education decided that he would be the person who would be willing to do what they wanted: enter the test and remove what they think the president would not like”, said one of the dismissed employees, referring to President Jair Bolsonaro, who had already criticized some questions on previous tests.
In an assembly earlier this month, some of the employees of INEP also pointed out that there are indications that processes will be deleted from the Electronic Information System (SEI), where all the administrative steps taken by public agencies are registered.
Also on Friday, 19, the Association of Employees of the Inep (Assinep) accused the Bolsonaro government of “censoring” the publication of a scientific article that showed the evolution of literacy indicators in the country due to the National Pact for Literacy at the Right Age (Pnaic), a program of the first term of Dilma Rousseff government that cost more than $ 2.7 billion to public coffers.
Based on cross-referencing data and statistics, the study concluded that the program was responsible for an “increase in math and language proficiency” in basic education “compared to other state interventions,” and that the “economic return” had “a positive effect of the investment. For some unexplained reason, however, the article, which is signed by researchers Alexandre André dos Santos and Renan Gomes de Pieri and titled “Economic Evaluation of Piac”, was never published.