It was approved this Tuesday (2), in the Ordinary Session of the University Council (Consu) from Unicamp, the proposal to implement ethnic-racial quotas and for students from public schools in the entrance exams of the Technical Colleges of Campinas (Cotuca) and Limeira (Cotil). The initiative was approved by the Council with 71 votes in favor and only two abstentions. According to the proposal, 70% of the places offered by the two schools will be allocated to students coming from the public education network, with 35% of the total places going to black, brown or indigenous students, preferably also coming from public schools. The quotas will be adopted in the 2021 entrance exam.
According to Teresa Meloni Rosa, executive director of Pre-University Education at Unicamp, shortly after the university adopted quotas in the entrance exam for undergraduate courses, school teams felt encouraged to prepare proposals to extend the measures to secondary education. and technical. She says that the discussions began in 2018 and were initiated at Cotuca, which already adopted the bonus for PAAIS points in the selection, and was later taken to Cotil. "We were very confident that it would be a proposal that could be implemented in 2021. We are very satisfied with the result, because starting from a mature proposal, the chance of it going wrong is very small", analyzes the professor.
The project foresees that, when registering for entrance exams, candidates will be identified by the student markers PPI - Black, mixed race and indigenous, EPu - Public school students or AC - Broad competition. Successful candidates will be classified in a single list for each course and called according to the order of classification into three groups: first, 35% of the vacancies (14 of 40) filled, in the order of classification, by students identified as PPI and, preferably, also EPu. Once these vacancies are filled, another 35% (14 of 40) will be called up, also in order of classification, by students identified as EPu, regardless of race/ethnicity. Finally, the third group will have 30% of the vacancies (12 out of 40) filled by students in broad competition, also called in order of classification.
"It is a proposal that does not create an exclusive entry point, but a call dynamic that allows the student to register for the entrance exam and the vacancies are distributed by groups according to classification and within the markers of being black, brown or indigenous and being from a public school", explains André Pasti, a teacher at Cotuca and coordinator of the Working Group that discussed the quota project at the unit.
Expand the representation of Public Education in São Paulo
The percentages adopted for the quotas were based on data on the ethnic composition of the population of the State of São Paulo, measured by IBGE, and the total enrollment in Elementary School II (6th to 9th year) in public schools, shown by the School Census. According to the numbers, 37,2% of the State's population declares themselves black, brown or indigenous and, among students in the second stage of Elementary School in São Paulo, 80,5% of enrollments are concentrated in the public network, with in the Metropolitan Region of Campinas, the value is 78,2%.
In this way, the values of 35% of vacancies allocated to black, mixed-race and indigenous candidates and 70% for students coming from public schools represent an attempt to ensure that the social characteristics of the State are represented in the schools' student body. "In the most popular courses, there was a great inversion of this logic. There was a big difference in the enrollment data of the schools that did not demonstrate the reality of the State", comments Murilo Tabosa, professor at Cotil and member of the unit's Working Group.
The elaboration of the proposal and discussion of strategies for implementing not only quotas, but policies for welcoming and permanence of quota students, went through university bodies such as the Advisory Committee on Ethnic-Racial Diversity (Cader), of the Executive Directorate of Human Rights (DEDH), and by collectives and student representation bodies. According to Pedro Monteiro, student and member of the Coletivo Negro do Cotuca (Crioules), the approval of the proposal is a milestone for the mission of the public university. "We see the approval of the proposal as a commitment that the university makes to the democratization of access to quality public education and a contribution to the deep existing inequalities", commented the student.
For Marcelo Knobel, rector of Unicamp, the adoption of quotas is the result of a broad discussion and represents issues that have always been defended. "The public university must have a more faithful representation of Brazilian society and this is what we have done in this direction, seeking to bring this diversity to the university and, therefore, it is a very important day for the schools of Unicamp, Cotuca and Cotil , and for the university as a whole", points out the dean.