This week, the Ministry of Education (MEC) began the process of extinguishing the National Program for Civic-Military Schools (Pecim). The decision, which impacts around 200 schools in the five regions of the country, was celebrated and criticized. For some, the model needs to be extinguished and is not in line with the role of the public school. For others, the model generates results and must be maintained. For the Brazilian Union of Secondary Students (Ubes), the measure is a victory, as the civic-military model is “a school model that ends up depriving students of freedom of expression”. For the president of the entity, Jade Beatriz, the model “does not support the formation of critical thinking and ends up excluding a portion of the students”. According to Beatriz, the school needs to be democratic and should encourage students to become more active. “Today, having this victory means a lot to us. But, in any case, we continue to fight so that, in addition to being democratic, schools have adequate infrastructure and also strengthen technical schools”. For her, the role of education is “to make you go beyond the walls of the school, to be able to question yourself about what you live today. It is necessary to ensure that the school is not only an instrument for combating social inequality, but is also able to contribute to the formation of critical thinking”. The director of Colégio Estadual Beatriz Faria Ansay Cívico-Militar, located in Curitiba, Paraná, Sandro Mira, received the news with concern. “Of course, this is not good news, since the implementation of the program was a great victory, a great gift for our community”. The college was even cited as a model by Jair Bolsonaro’s management when disclosing the program’s balance sheet at the end of last year. The case of Colégio Estadual was taken as an example in achieving the target established for the Basic Education Development Index (Ideb). “Our school was totally discredited, both by the community and by government officials. For this reason, he was one of those selected to enter the program and, based on the work, with values based on our students, teachers and employees, we were able to transform the school, both structurally and pedagogically and socially. of our students. Today we have a beautiful school, which is taken care of by the community. There is no depredation in our school”, says Mira. Civic-military schools Pecim was the main flag of the Bolsonaro government in education. Throughout implementation, the model received praise, but also a series of criticisms and reports of abuse by the military in schools and exclusion of teachers and students. Ending the program is, likewise, a flag of the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. This week, the MEC sent a letter to the Education secretaries informing that the program will be finalized and that a careful transition of activities should be made so as not to compromise the daily life of schools. The program is run in partnership between the MEC and the Ministry of Defense. Through it, military personnel act in school management and educational management. The program counts on the participation of military personnel from the Armed Forces reserve, police officers and military firefighters. The proposal of the civic-military model is that the military act in school administration and student discipline, while teachers are responsible for the pedagogical part. The model has strict appearance rules for students. Bun for the girls and the so-called “low pattern hair”, cut with machine two, for the boys. Adornments such as piercings are not allowed. National Research Network According to Catarina de Almeida Santos, professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Brasília (UnB) and member of the National Research Network on Militarization of Education, the civic-military model does not comply with educational legislation , which does not provide, by law, for the military to work in schools. And besides, according to her, it is exclusionary. Thus, the letter sent by the MEC to the secretariats, the professor says, is a first step towards the demobilization of the model, but it is necessary that a decree actually abolishes the program and, after that, other measures are taken to prevent states and municipalities from continue to implement this regime in public schools. “In addition to the schools militarized by Pecim, the program itself had a huge impact on expanding militarization. On its own, in states and municipalities. We had, at the beginning of 2019, about 200 militarized schools. Today we have more than 1,000”, says Santos. “The Federal Government has a role in coordinating this policy and defining guidelines. This is the exclusive prerogative of the Union, to define guidelines for national education”. Catarina points out that the model is exclusionary, as it ends up leaving out those who “do not suit” it. These students and teachers are transferred or are led to request transfers to other schools in the network. “What we saw in this process was this, the exclusion of students who say they are not suitable for the process, in addition to the impediment [de professores] to work on themes that they understand do not fit with the school. This is what we have observed in this process of militarization, which is not exclusive to Pecim schools, but which is part of the logic of the military”. According to the teacher, the role of the public school is to be a space that “welcomes all beliefs, all orientations. Public is for that, to serve all people, ”she says. MEC’s reasons In a technical note, in which it analyzes the program, the MEC concludes that the characteristics of the program and the execution, so far, indicate that maintenance is not a priority and that the objectives defined for its execution must be pursued by mobilizing other strategies of educational politics. The note, signed by the deputy Secretary of Basic Education Alexsandro Santos, advises against maintaining the program as it understands that there are problems of normative cohesion/coherence between its structure and the normative foundations of the Brazilian educational system. In addition, it induces a deviation from the purpose of the activities of the armed forces, “invoking their performance in an area that is not their expertise and is not consistent with their institutional place in the Brazilian legal system”. The technical note adds that the budget execution of the financial assistance resources destined to the Program’s schools throughout the years 2020, 2021 and 2021 was negligible, compromising investments that could be mobilized in other priority fronts of the MEC. Finally, the analysis concludes that the justification for carrying out the program “is problematic, when assuming that the educational management model, the didactic-pedagogical model and the administrative management model of the military schools would be the solution to face the issues arising from the social vulnerability of the territories in which public schools are located and which would have the necessary characteristics to achieve the type of universal service provided for regular basic education, ignoring that military schools are structurally, functionally, demographically and legally different from public schools regulars”.
Agência Brasil
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