The auditorium of the Unicamp Teachers' Association (Adunicamp) hosted this Monday (2) the seminar "Militarization of Public Schools", a meeting that brought together researchers from Unicamp and other universities, members of public authorities and education entities to discuss the proposal and implementation of the National Civic-Military Schools Program, an initiative of the Ministry of Education that aims to include military personnel in the educational, didactic-pedagogical and administrative management of selected public schools. The event was promoted by the Study and Research Group on Educational Policies (GREPPE) and by the Educational Management Laboratory (LOCATION), from the Faculty of Education (FE).
During the meeting, details of the program and information about the reality of schools that already operate under civic-military management were presented, compared to the conventional management of public schools. The political and social motivations that led to this proposal and the implications that the measure could have on students and school communities were also discussed.
"It seems to me that there is a very strong concern with discipline, but they are unaware that military discipline has an end in itself. At school it does not have an end in itself, it exists because it can contribute to students' learning. I don't want students to be disciplined just for them to be disciplined. This is a central difference. Military discipline has nothing to do with discipline at school, so it's a conceptual problem", comments Cristiane Machado, FE teacher and a of the organizers. She analyzes that there are no guarantees that the inclusion of military personnel in the day-to-day activities of schools will result in more discipline on the part of students.
Campinas will be tested in the state
O National Civic-Military Schools Program was established by the federal government through the Decree No. 10.004 / 2019 and aims to include military personnel from the Armed Forces reserves in supporting the administrative and educational management of public schools. To be included in the program, states and municipalities had to demonstrate adherence to the civic-military model. According to the Ministry of Education, 15 states and the Federal District, in addition to 643 cities, showed interest. On November 21st, the 54 schools that should be part of the program in 2020 were announced. In total, the ministry intends to implement the model in 216 schools by 2023.
During the initial presentation, Telma Vinha, FE teacher, presented data showing a superior performance of the Civic-Military Schools (ECM), in comparison to other institutions in the public network, such as the results in the 2017 Ideb. According to the index, the The average for public schools was 4,1, while for ECM it was 6,5. However, the teacher demonstrated that these schools have more investment and student selection resources, which justifies the result. According to Telma, an average of 19 thousand reais is invested per year per student in ECM, compared to only 6 thousand reais invested annually in students in conventional schools. It also details that ECMs can charge monthly fees and contribution fees from families, in addition to holding entrance exams and selections. As a result, these are schools that serve a more privileged socioeconomic profile.
She also detailed that ECM imposes on students a series of norms and regulations, such as dress and aesthetic standards, which can affect the construction of students' identities, in addition to principles of conduct marked by rigidity. "The school not only controls behavior, but standardizes appearances", explains Telma. The professor comments that reference countries in the International Student Assessment Program (Pisa), such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland and Canada, are moving in the opposite direction of the program, investing in educational models based on student autonomy.
In the state of São Paulo, Campinas was the only city selected to implement the civic-military model. The selected school is Emef Prof. Odila Maia Rocha Brito, in Jardim São Domingos, a neighborhood in the extreme south of the city and which has one of the lowest scores in the ideb (5,5) from the municipal network. Despite the school's results, the guests argue that the city's education system is one of the best rated in the country and that there was no debate with education professionals before the city joined the program.
"It draws attention to Campinas, which has one of the most organized educational systems in the country, joining the program without even knowing it, without even consulting the community, without consulting the network. We have one of the most structured networks that exist, best evaluated. Unless it means using education as an electoral currency, and education is not an electoral currency", argues Thereza Adrião, FE professor also responsible for organizing the event.
"Since Colonial Brazil we have lived under a military logic"
For Roberto Romano, retired professor of Ethics and Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) from Unicamp, the initiative to create the ECM shows a deficiency in the country's own military thinking and culture. For him, the inclusion of military personnel in the educational system feeds the idea that there is an enemy to be fought in schools. "In the two dictatorships of the 20th century, you had a very strong presence of the military ideal of discipline. What we are witnessing is a return of the worst in Brazilian political tradition, which is the refusal of civil life, with its freedoms, autonomy. It seems to me that the consequences of this are tremendous, because you have, for the first time, an orderly plan to transform schools into barracks", comments the professor.
In an analysis from a legal point of view, prosecutor João Paulo Faustinoni e Silva, from the Public Ministry of the State of São Paulo, states that the program requires attention in its bases and in its implementation and conduction process. He explains that the measures may be incompatible with what the Federal Constitution provides in relation to the right to education. "At first, we are very concerned about this program in several aspects related to the legal issue. Firstly, due to its total disconnection from the constitutional principles of the right to education and the strategies and goals of the National and State Education Plans. In these plans there is no reference to the militarization of schools to achieve the goals that are established there, quite the contrary, all plans work with the reinforcement of democratic management, freedom, and appreciation of education professionals, and this project works with the idea of hierarchy and discipline, placing professionals outside the educational environment within the school, which can generate problems both within the scope of Constitutional Law and Administrative Law", explains the prosecutor.
A retired lieutenant colonel from the Military Police and a PhD student in School Psychology and Human Development at USP, Adilson Paes de Souza has experience in combining the vision from inside the barracks with studies on human rights. Author of the book "O Guardião da Cidade", which reflects on cases of violence committed by military police officers, he followed the discussions and agrees with the criticisms of the intention to apply military discipline in schools. "Military discipline is implemented in a way that hinders the emancipatory educational process, hinders the presence of criticism, of the initiative of the student or person. Discipline is an inhibiting factor, and this is dangerous. It is a source of authoritarianism, the students are like little robots. That rigid, hard thing that hinders free thinking. If you think of school as an exercise in plurality, in tolerance, that died with the military issue", says the researcher.
