Mechanisms are part of a broader policy that aims to ensure that society is represented at the University
Unicamp took a historic decision this Tuesday afternoon (21) by approving, through the University Council (Consu), mechanisms that make admission to its undergraduate courses more flexible. Among the measures accepted are the adoption of an ethnic-racial quota system that reserves 25% of available places for self-declared black and brown candidates and the creation of the Indigenous Entrance Exam. The objective of the initiative, as rector Marcelo Knobel pointed out, is to ensure that society is represented in the institution. The measures will be applied from 2019.
According to Knobel, Unicamp took an important step by establishing new ways of entering undergraduate courses that combine principles such as merit, social justice, equity and diversity. “Now, we will begin a new stage, which will include the creation of the Secretariat for Affirmative Actions, Diversity and Equity, a body that will take care of issues such as monitoring and student retention, and the preparation of the respective notices”, he adds.
In addition to the ethnic-racial quotas and the Indigenous Entrance Examination, the Consu also approved changes to the Affirmative Action and Social Inclusion Program (PAAIS), created in 2004, in order to improve it. One of the new features is the granting of a bonus [20 points in the first and second phase of the Entrance Exam] also to candidates who attended Elementary School II in a public school. In the current model, PAAIS grants additional points only to candidates who completed high school in a public school.
The Consu also endorsed the recommendation of the Central Graduation Commission (CCG), which suggested the partial offer of vacancies through the National High School Exam (Enem) and not through the Unified Selection System (SISU), as originally stated in the proposed resolution formulated by the Working Group (GT Ingresso), constituted by the Council itself to analyze new routes of entry into undergraduate courses. The designation of vacancies for the best placed in olympiads and knowledge competitions was another approved point, as well as the recommendation that the University promote studies for the expansion of the Higher Interdisciplinary Training Program (ProFIS) to the cities of the Metropolitan Region of Campinas ( RMC) and the municipalities of Piracicaba and Limeira.
As important as creating conditions for society to feel represented at Unicamp, the measures approved by Consu will help to further qualify teaching, research and extension activities within the institution, as explained by the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Professor Eliana Amaral . “Diversity is a fundamental substrate for the University. Different perspectives and experiences help science to formulate creative and innovative solutions to the problems it investigates”, she points out.
President of GT Ingresso and executive coordinator of the Permanent Commission for Entrance Exams (Comvest), professor José Alves de Freitas Neto understands that Consu's decision sent an important message to society. “The University signals that it recognizes the existence of multiple educational experiences that deserve to be considered in the search for the best students. Without a doubt, it was a mature decision, taken after deep reflection by the entire university community”, he assesses.
Several guests attended the Consu session. In addition to members of GT Ingresso, representatives of social movements and indigenous peoples were present at the meeting. Several of them spoke out highlighting the importance of the University offering opportunities for members of social segments that have always been underrepresented in Brazilian higher education. At the end of the vote, two indigenous students from the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) danced and sang typical songs to celebrate the approval of the measures, especially the creation of the Indigenous Entrance Exam.
******
Changes will produce academic and social gains
The creation of multiple forms of access to undergraduate courses at Unicamp, including the ethnic-racial quota system, represents an important advance for the University and also for society. This is, in short, the assessment of three actors who were directly involved in the process of creating the proposal, professors Mário Augusto Medeiros da Silva and Lucilene Reginaldo, both from the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH), and Taina Aparecida Silva Santos , member of the Black Consciousness Center at Unicamp.
According to Medeiros, who was part of both GT Cotas and GT Ingresso, the process that resulted in the proposed resolution considered by Consu was positive. He highlights that the discussions took place at a high level and that there was no setback in relation to the previous proposals, which included contributions from both the internal and external communities. “All the points presented are achievements of the demands expressed in the old report and in the public hearings. These reinforce the principle of social diversity as a scientific strategy at Unicamp, combined with the mechanism for reducing inequalities in access to higher education and combating racism and discrimination in Brazilian society,” he states.
For the professor, by intensifying ethnic and social diversity, Unicamp not only responds affirmatively to social rights and mechanisms to combat inequalities and racism, but also moves towards the qualification of its research, teaching and extension activities. “Students who enter the University through these mechanisms will be tested by the Entrance Exam, like everyone else. Therefore, they are highly capable according to the institution's values. They will bring with them, in their baggage, world views and social experiences that will make Unicamp richer and more complex, and original solutions to problems faced in different areas of knowledge may emerge from this scenario”, he assesses.
Medeiros recalls that Consu members must still advance the debate regarding student retention policies. “This was not within the scope of the GT Ingresso discussion, but it was in the previous one and is something inseparable from the proposals created. Housing, research and social scholarships, as well as institutional mechanisms to combat discrimination and prejudice, are absolutely necessary measures for these policies to be successful”, observes the IFCH professor.
A member of GT Cotas, professor Lucilene also positively evaluates both the process and the result of the debates regarding the measures suggested in the proposed resolution. “We started the discussions at a level and ended at a much higher level. The discussions came from the demands of the students, but also from the academic community and social movements. I participated in meetings in several teaching and research units, where the topic of racism as a structuring element of Brazilian society was on the agenda. It was a very important discussion and showed that groups were convinced that we needed to think about new forms of entry and that quotas were part of the recognition of the presence of racism in Brazilian society”, she reports.
The suggestions presented, he points out, also represent recognition of the University's social place. “It is an important issue to recognize the relevance of affirmative action policies in a country with a history of racial discrimination and rejection of the rights of indigenous peoples. In this sense, Unicamp admits that it has a role to play in relation to these issues. But it goes further: the entry of these social groups also means a gain for the institution. We gain from living in a more diverse environment, which is important to combat racial discrimination. But we also benefit from the point of view of knowledge production. This is an epistemological gain. Let's bring people here who look at the world from another point of view. And this contributes to the production of new knowledge”, he understands.
In Taina's opinion, the process of reflection on new forms of entry was “interesting”. She considers that there are specific points to be analyzed more carefully, notably with regard to the trigger mechanism of some measures. “But as the system will be evaluated annually, in accordance with what we established in the proposal, I believe we will have opportunities to discuss possible changes. For now, we did the best work possible for the time we had available,” she says.
According to her, who participated in both GTs, despite some specific disagreements, the GT Ingresso managed to establish a certain consensus. “In relation to racial quotas, for example, we were able to guarantee that the percentage of black population in the State of São Paulo is respected when reserving vacancies. With regard to the Indigenous Entrance Examination, at least on our part, there was an interest in dialoguing with the leaders of some communities so that we could carry out assertive analyzes on which courses were of greatest interest to this population, with the aim of avoiding evasion or low demand. ”.
The representative of the Unicamp Black Consciousness Center says that her expectation is that the proposals presented will be endorsed by Consu. “With this, we will be ending a cycle that changed the dynamics of this University and the place that the issue of racism had been occupying on the institutional agenda. Without a doubt, it is an important step for public higher education and a victory for the Brazilian Black Movement”, he says, adding that other issues must be debated from now on, such as the creation of the future Secretariat for Affirmative Actions, Diversity and Equity, which will take care of issues such as student permanence. “The implementation of this body needs to count on broad participation and consultation with the university community”, she claims.
******
Simulations indicate progress in inclusion
The proposals presented in the GT Ingresso document were preceded by numerous simulations, carried out based on the database of those enrolled in the 2017 Entrance Exam. “Supported by the available information, we made projections about what access to Unicamp would look like, in general terms and by course , considering the mechanisms suggested in the proposed resolution. This exercise was not carried out in relation to the vacancies allocated to Sisu [the CCG recommended replacing this system with Enem] because we do not have data on those enrolled in this system”, explains professor Rafael Pimentel Maia, research coordinator at Comvest.
The scenario designed, continues Maia, refers to the first call. According to simulations, the general rate of successful candidates from public schools would increase from the current 50,2% to 45,9%. As for courses, the proportion of students coming from public schools would vary from 80%, in the case of Technological Chemistry [evening], to 28,3% in Production Engineering [full-time]. “This variation has to do with the profile of the registered candidates. There are courses in which the proportion of enrollees who graduated from public schools is much higher than in others, such as some careers offered at night and some degrees”, explains the research coordinator at Comvest.
The University's expectation, points out Maia, is that, with the offer of new ways of accessing graduation, demand from candidates from public schools will increase. “We expect the same in relation to self-declared black and brown candidates. “Currently, the presence of this segment among undergraduate students is 21,8%. With the advent of quotas, this rate would initially rise to 33,6%, a number close to the target that Unicamp intends to reach, 37,2%, which corresponds to the participation of black and brown people in the population of the State of São Paulo”, observes the professor.
Broken down by courses, the participation of Afro-descendant students would also show positive variations. According to the simulations carried out, the proportion would rise from 35,7% to 40% in Economic Sciences [nighttime] and from 11,4% to 20% in Environmental Sanitation Technology [nighttime]. With the advent of quotas, around 20 courses would have a contingent of black and brown people equivalent to or greater than the representation of this ethnic group in the São Paulo population.
As the Indigenous Entrance Exam has yet to be created, it was obviously not possible to make a projection on the possible participation of this group in Unicamp's undergraduate courses, as Maia warns. However, GT Ingresso consulted universities that adopted this selection process and listed the courses most sought after by indigenous people. They are: Medicine, Biological Sciences, Pharmacy, Nursing, Physical Education, Nutrition, Social Sciences, Literature, Linguistics, Pedagogy, Geography, History, Philosophy, Administration, Social Communication (Medialogy) and Agricultural Engineering. Some of them have already expressed interest in offering vacancies for this segment.
******
Debates involved the entire community
Until it was approved by the University Council (Consu), the proposal to adopt ethnic-racial quotas and other changes in the forms of entry into undergraduate courses at Unicamp came a long way. The work involved public hearings, creation of specific groups for study and development of a model; statistical simulations to support the proposal and presentations and discussions in teaching and research units and in the Entrance Examination Deliberative Chamber.
For five months, since June 2017, the second Working Group (GT Ingresso) formulated and discussed a proposal capable of achieving greater equity in access to Unicamp (read about the first GT at the end of the text). The group was created by University Council (Consu) shortly after the approval, on May 30, of the principle of ethnic-racial quotas in undergraduate courses.
As soon as they were officially appointed by rector Marcelo Knobel, the 13 members of GT Ingresso began their work. The group, chaired by the executive coordinator of the Permanent Commission for Unicamp Entrance Exams (Comvest), José Alves de Freitas Neto, was made up of two representatives from Comvest; two representatives from the GT Cotas (which preceded the work of the GT entry); two representatives of social movements; three representatives from Consu; a student representative; a staff representative and a representative of the Central Graduation Committee (CCG).
Still in June, before the first GT Ingresso meeting, a meeting of the Vestibular Deliberative Chamber was held, in which representatives from each Unicamp course presented their considerations on ethnic-racial quotas and other actions that were being studied. The Chamber representatives had been guided by Comvest's executive coordination and had a few weeks to gather such information from the internal community and congregations and, later, present it at the meeting. According to the president of GT Ingresso, it was an important moment, as “Listening to the courses was essential to detail the specificities and face the challenge of staying there”, stated José Alves.
The first GT Ingresso meeting took place four days after this meeting of the Entrance Exam Chamber. The members then defined the meeting calendar and work dynamics, in order to meet the schedule established by Consu.
After around two months of studies and statistical simulations, the GT Ingresso proposal was finalized and presented, on August 31st, in the Entrance Examination Deliberative Chamber. The GT recommended expanding entry possibilities in different ways.
From then on, GT Ingresso's work was to present and discuss the proposal in each teaching unit, with the aim of clarifying doubts and provoking internal reflection on the specificities of each course. The presentations were made by the president of the GT and the research coordinator at Comvest, Rafael Maia, who is also part of GT Ingresso.
On November 9, the finalized proposal was presented in the Deliberative Chamber, where it was unanimously approved, but with important suggestions for adjustments. In the session, jAlong with the text of the deliberation, the Chamber approved other documents that would support discussions both in the CCG and in the University Council (Consu): a table compiling all the course statements and an annex on how to fill vacancies.
The consideration and approval by the Central Graduation Commission (CCG) took place on November 14th, the last stage before voting on the deliberation in the University Council, on November 21st.
GT Cotas preceded GT Ingresso
The process for developing a policy for the adoption of quotas in undergraduate courses at Unicamp began in 2016. In the first semester of that year there was a student mobilization that resulted in an agreement between the Rectory and groups associated with the Student Movement. In September, the then rector José Tadeu Jorge designated, through an ordinance (GR-050/2016), the Working Group responsible for promoting public hearings and which became known as GT Cotas. The group was made up of 11 members and chaired by professor Rachel Meneguello. Three public hearings were held in October, November and December 2016, which resulted in a broad debate about quotas at the University. GT Cotas finalized and presented, in February 2017, a report with the results of the discussions at the hearings and a proposal to reformulate the affirmative action policy at Unicamp, taking into account the dimensions of university access and permanence.
Leaders talk about approval
DENNIS DE OLIVEIRA
It is important to guarantee access mechanisms to higher education for black youth who, due to racism, are excluded from the possibility of higher qualifications and other opportunities. It is the correction of one of the mechanisms of racism as a barrier to opportunities. And from the point of view of USP and Unicamp, as they are cutting-edge universities that concentrate a large part of the research, you enable the participation of young people in these centers of knowledge power. We will see young black men and women as protagonists of cutting-edge research in advanced study centers, playing a prominent role in science.
We need a total reformulation of the Brazilian State, which was constituted from a racial exclusion perspective. When we look at Brazil's history in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the transition from the slave labor system to wage labor, we observe that a State was constituted with three elements: a State that is focused on maintaining the concentration of income and assets, for example, when we see that there is a regressive tax system in Brazil that penalizes consumption more, and therefore the working and black population by keeping assets and income concentration intact; the second element is a State with a restricted conception of citizenship, with restricted access to quality education and healthcare; and the third element is violence as a central practice for maintaining privileges, as it occurs when, even in democratic regimes, the State maintains intense repressive apparatuses, which fundamentally affect the young black population on the outskirts.
We understand that this process of racial exclusion in education and health, with violence, is occasional. They are part of the logic of this State. It is important to achieve racial quotas and other affirmative actions, but it is essential to direct a radical transformation of the Brazilian State, so that it is actually constituted to guarantee social and racial reparation and equity.
DJAMILA RIBEIRO
It is extremely important to have affirmative actions at Unicamp because they play a role in de facto reparation, as opportunities are not equal for the black population due to apartheid historically existing in these spaces due to structural and institutional racism. It is an important step towards reducing these distances.
Within the affirmative actions that guarantee access, it is equally important to think about the issue of students remaining in these spaces. It is a great challenge at a time when this type of policy is decreasing. Most come from poor places and students are often forced to drop out of university because of this. Another issue is that we have a serious and in-depth debate in Brazil about structural racism. In a country where the myth of racial democracy was created, we have difficulty holding the debate more candidly. They need to guarantee these actions since they still use the issue of race to discriminate. The creation of policies in this sense, in addition to education, needs to be expanded to other sectors.
Quality public education is something that the movement has always demanded, with affirmative actions parallel to the improvement of public education. And this ends up being a big challenge, as the majority are in public education, in a failed project that needs to be reviewed. Access through affirmative actions lasts for a period of time. While education is not truly universal, in a country where we suffer from commodification, these measures are important, but they must be thought of beyond education.
DOUGLAS BELCHIOR
Access to formal education, at all levels, is a historic struggle for the black population. The same population that has always realized that access to information, education and knowledge is a strategy to fight for their freedom. So much so that slave owners, even during the Empire period, introduced laws that prohibited the presence of Africans and their descendants in public schools when they were created. Access to education by the black population has always been seen as a risk to the status quo, for slave elites in this country.
This dynamic continues post-abolition, as access to Brazilian education has never been democratized since then, compared to the presence of blacks and whites in these spaces. Which is a shame, because we lost a lot of potential that could help us develop the country. It is from the black population that the greatest innovations in the field of culture and arts emerge. And, even with limitations around the world, black men and women are prominent in science and in formal and non-formal knowledge.
The Brazilian university has always refused to be a space to welcome this population. And that's why it has always been so poor, normative and not universal. In such a way that racial quotas, as a compensatory and temporary policy for the situation that Brazil is experiencing apartheid radical and profound, unrecognized, is a contribution to your own appreciation. Those who benefit from the presence of black people at universities are the institution itself and society in general. Hence the importance of approval, even with delay, of these affirmative policies.
Joselício Freitas dos Santos Júnior
The quota policy is, without a shadow of a doubt, a very important measure to reduce the economic, social and cultural abyss, which has been built throughout Brazilian history, especially post-abolition. We understand that access to public universities is an element of historical reparation for exclusion and the gap that has formed between black and non-black people. It is an empowering factor, important for improving the social condition of the black community, and democratizes this space for knowledge production, placing the university at the service of the community and Brazilian society.
In a democratic regime, the university must express the diversity of Brazilian society. Having black students at the university causes the need to rethink curricula, poses a challenge on the issue of permanence and access to postgraduate studies. It will cause the need to have black teachers, bringing greater breadth and diversity to the institution.
The achievement of quotas at Unicamp is a great victory for the movement and the black people. It is a victory for those who dream and fight for democracy and for a university that is at the service of the majority of the Brazilian population. I think it took a while, as we have already had quotas implemented in Brazil for over a decade, and universities in São Paulo are only now starting to implement a policy that all statistical data shows does not reduce the quality of teaching. Quota students perform the same or better than non-quota students, expanding the discussion about diversity, and bringing necessary conflicts to change curricula and paradigms within universities.
Affirmative actions have proven to be a great success in the last decade, and it is important that universities in São Paulo, which have historically served the elites, start to serve the interests of the working and historically excluded population in this country. That's why I see the implementation of quotas at Unicamp as progress.
