Half of the places in federal institutions will go to students coming from public schools

The approval of a quota policy in the education area by the Chamber of Deputies, last November, was not enough to shut the polemics on the subject. The Bill 73/99 was approved in a symbolic voting, after an agreement among leaders, but deputies, researchers, professors and students disagree on the enrolment quotas in universities and in federal technical schools.

The Bill returned to the Senate because of the inclusion, by the deputies, of economic criteria for the selection of students, and is still being reviewed by the Senators of the Committee on the Constitution and Justice. The Chamber approved the project on last November 20th, the Black Consciousness Day.

Social Quotas
The approved text determines that 50% of the places in federal institutions be destined to students coming from public school. From those places, 50% will be filled by students coming from families with incomes lower than 1.5 minimum wage (R$622.50) by person. In addition to social quotas, the bill requires that the places be destined to black, mulattos and indigenous students in the same proportion as those populations exist in the total population of each state.

The text also establishes that the selection of students having the right to be enrolled in university by means of quotas will be based on a performance coefficient, obtained by the calculation of the arithmetic average of grades or mentions received by the students during High School. Private institutions of Superior Education will also be allowed to adopt quotas to the enrolment of students.

Palliative character
For the sociologist Demétrio Magnoli, who is against the bill, only provisory quotas for students coming from public school are acceptable. According to him, that should be done in emergency character, because of the current disparity between the quality of public and private education. However, the sociologist affirms that only the investment in quality improvement of public schools and the increase in the number of places in public universities can democratize access to college education.
He considers that racial quotas represent the “introduction of the concept of race in law, a concept which does not exist in biology, but which can be inserted in legislation because of political reasons”. Magnoli fears that the inclusion of the concept of race in legislation could stimulate “processes of mass racial hatred”.

Historical inequality
Anthropologist and professor at the Universidade de Brasília (UnB), José Jorge de Carvalho considers that racial quotas are necessary to correct a historical inequality between black and white in Brazil. “The quotas are necessary because the black in Brazil are 48% of the population, while black teachers at public university do not reach 1%. Or be it, we live in an exclusion reality which is probably one of the most severe in the planet”.

For Carvalho, social quotas do not change the racial profile of Brazilian inequality, and therefore each one of its aspects has to be dealt with in a separate way. “Even among the poor, the white one has advantage”, he affirms. The professor highlights that, even if approved, the quotas will fall on only on 3% of the places of superior education.

According to Carvalho, the current system will not be corrected if the conditions are not changed. “According to the forecasts, even with the quotas, it will take 60 years to reach an equalitarian level”, he affirms. In addition to that, he highlights that the quotas do not let aside meritocracy of access to superior education, because there are just a few places being disputed. “Those places cannot be plutocratic as they are now, or, they cannot be only at reach of those who can afford a preparation course.”

Report - Cristiane Bernardes
Editing - Pierre Triboli

Translation - Positive Idiomas Ltda