October 7, 2021

09:10

Cassandra Castro – from Cenarium

BRASILIA – A subcommittee on student and quilombola issues will be created within the Education Commission of the House of Representatives. The decision is the result of an extraordinary public hearing, held jointly by the Commissions of Education and Participatory Legislation, on Tuesday, 5. The session was attended by several indigenous leaders, quilombola representatives, university rectors, and representatives of the Ministry of Education.

The meeting was conducted by the lawmakers Professora Rosa Neide (PT/MT) and Waldenor Pereira (PT/BA) and, on the agenda, were the challenges of permanence of indigenous and quilombolas in Brazilian Higher Education. The subcommittee will monitor the executive’s budget, the ongoing projects directed to the students and will be a space of dialogue between the parliament, the indigenous and quilombola representatives and other institutions related to the subject.

The University representatives reiterated the importance of actions that keep the indigenous and quilombola students in the Higher Education institutions with programs that allow the arrival of knowledge in the communities themselves. The pro-rector of Student Affairs at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), Albert de Souza, mentioned the Connected Village program, which provides all the necessary technological logistics for the course content to reach the villages.

Education is not a priority, say indigenous and quilombolas

The coordinator of the National Meeting of Indigenous Students in Brazil, Kâhu Pataxó, called attention to the drama of the closing of the Ministry of Education (MEC) System that allows these students to access universities.

“Since 2017, the MEC has been making a process of closing the System that is preventing the entrance of indigenous students. We have already had several hearings with ministers and executive secretaries, but it seems that indigenous and quilombola school education at the Higher level is not a priority”, she pointed out at the meeting that took place in the House of Representatives, in the federal capital.

The representative of the National Movement of Quilombola Students, Charlene da Costa Bandeira, also endorsed the speech of the indigenous representative regarding the federal government.

“This government has no commitment to education, we are always on the sidelines and they don’t want us in the university. We deserve this space, because this country was built by our people. When the MEC cuts the scholarship and doesn’t open the system for two years, it says that we shouldn’t have access to these spaces”, he complained.

The Director of Policies and Programs of Higher Education of the Secretary of Higher Education (SESu) of MEC, Edimilson Costa Silva, promised to schedule a meeting with members of the commissions and representatives of indigenous and quilombola students to address issues such as budget recomposition for 2022, as well as other demands presented by the university students.

Indigenous and quilombola students also participated in the meeting. During this week they participate, in Brasilia, in the first Indigenous and Quilombola School Education Forum, with about 600 university students.