The budget cut for public education, with the scrapping of organs vital to the development of Brazilian science, such as the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPQ), are reasons why the academic community at Unicamp has been fighting, especially today, the date of the first university assembly since the attempted intervention by the Paulo Maluf government, in the 1980s.
Student segments and workers at the University also reinforced the fight for the maintenance of university autonomy, already attacked at the federal level through the “Future-se” project and through intervention in the democratic consultation for the rectors and in check in São Paulo through the Commission Parliamentary Inquiry (CPI) of São Paulo universities. Several voices from the university community, given this context, protest for the maintenance of the basic pillars of public education.
“The government has been cutting resources and we see this as cutting our voice within society. If you cut off the voice of the university, you have a much more muzzled society without free thought. We wage this fight against government cuts because we understand that we have a fundamental role within society”, points out the director of the Unicamp Workers Union (STU) Gabriela Diniz. For Gabriela, who works in the health sector at the Center for Comprehensive Attention to Women's Health (CAISM), everyone's participation is essential so that the university can maintain resources to fulfill its role in society, providing academic and social training. .
The president of the Unicamp Teachers' Association (Adunicamp), Wagner Romão, highlights that attacks on education are widespread and highlights the role of the Unicamp community in the resistance. “It is a context of many attacks, not only on public universities, but on education and science in general. Unicamp, as a leading university in the production of science, postgraduate studies and free, socially referenced public quality education, has a very important role”, he states. Wagner, professor at the Department of Political Science, also points out that it is necessary to pay attention to possible attacks on autonomy, which can be consolidated in the final report of the CPI of São Paulo universities. For him, autonomy, constitutionally foreseen, is “the great element that made it possible for USP, Unesp and Unicamp to be cutting-edge universities as they are today” and needs to be defended.
The student segments, from which the proposal for an assembly emerged, reinforce the need to move forward in the fight. “We want to send a message, both to the state and federal governments, that we are discussing, we are producing knowledge and we want to show what is being produced at Unicamp”, says Matheus Albino, member of the Association of Postgraduate Students ( APG) from Unicamp. For him, it is necessary to respond to a campaign to embarrass universities, which has been carried out at both state and federal levels.
Patricia Kawaguchi, also a representative of APG, highlights the context of mobilization among postgraduate students. “Postgraduate studies are very mobilized because the attacks, specifically, are very strong, with threats to cut scholarships, the merger of CNPQ with Capes, the cut in investments”, she explains.
In the context of graduation, the members of Unicamp's Central Student Directory (DCE), Aline Schmidt and Lucas Marques, highlight the importance of community unity in the assembly and state that it is a historic moment. “Bolsonaro and Dória are embarking on an accelerated destruction of state and federal universities, bringing a clear dismantling of the poles of resistance to the authoritarian project of an anti-freedom, anti-reason and anti-science government”, points out Aline, also highlighting that the destruction of universities results in the loss of national sovereignty, since public universities are mainly responsible for scientific and academic production in the country.
Students also reinforce their concern with the maintenance and advancement of student conditions at the University, such as the expansion of student housing, and are against charging for courses at Unicamp. “The charge in postgraduate Postgraduate Course , for example, threatens the pillar of free services. If we don’t value defending some elements that are very essential, things get lost,” says Lucas.
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