Project involving the three state universities in São Paulo — Unicamp, University of São Paulo (USP) and Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) — in partnership with the Public Ministry of São Paulo (MPSP), financed by the Research Support Foundation (Fapesp), aims to make a broad diagnosis of the reality of the education of children and adolescents in rural territories in the state of São Paulo.
Coordinated by professor Fabiana de Cássia Rodrigues, from the Faculty of Education at Unicamp, the project will systematize information on the supply and demand for education for children and adolescents in these territories.
Primary and secondary data will be collected. Primary data will be produced through questionnaires sent to the municipal and state education departments of all municipalities in the state. There will also be listening to social subjects in rural territories and educational managers across the state. Secondary data will be processed, especially, from the school census produced by the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Inep).
“We hope to build a set of information and an Atlas on Early Childhood Education, Elementary Education and High School in rural territories in the state of São Paulo”, explains the teacher. “We intend for this material to provide support for public and educational agents in the search for the most effective and best ways of meeting the educational rights of children living in rural areas,” she added.
For the teacher, the idea is to improve understanding of rural-city relations and highlight the demands of rural areas that, according to her, ended up silenced by urban standards. “This pattern, highly widespread, sometimes disregards particularities, for example, of small municipalities that have intense rurality, or even municipalities that, although located in metropolitan regions, also have characteristics markedly linked to agricultural or farming activities”, ponders the professor .
“It is important to consider these characteristics when the topic is access and quality of educational provision for children and adolescents. A single pattern of supply, generally urban-centered, focuses on the possibilities of guaranteeing educational rights and the pedagogical possibilities of schools together with the multiplicity of sons and daughters of social subjects in the countryside, such as rural workers, quilombolas, indigenous people, settlers and campers in the agrarian reform and other family farmers”, he adds.
“The project argues that understanding the impact of this logic of homogenization of rural by urban on Education is necessary to overcome obstacles to the democratic provision of early childhood, primary and secondary education for children and adolescents living in rural areas of the state of São Paulo. Paulo and meeting his specific demands”, he concludes.
The teacher explains that the project also intends to expand the Education of children and adolescents in rural territories on the work agenda of the Public Ministry of the State of São Paulo.
Rights to education
The project was called Rights to education in rural territories in the State of São Paulo: subsidies for the actions of the São Paulo Public Ministry. In addition to the coordination of professor Fabiana Rodrigues, it has the participation of two associated researchers — professor Ana Paula Soares da Silva, from USP, and professor José Gilberto de Souza, from Unesp — and technical support fellows, master's students, doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows.
The project was submitted by the three professors and approved by Fapesp's Public Policy Research Program (PPPP) — a line of funding that promotes the direct application of science to improve public policies.
On the part of the Public Ministry, prosecutors and the MPSP Psychosocial Technical Advisory Center participate. The role of the Public Ministry as an agent of control and induction of public policies, on a broad scale, allows the mobilization of state and municipal policies.
Collaborative character
The dean of Unicamp, professor Antonio José de Almeida Meirelles, highlighted the collaborative nature of the project. “The importance of this collaboration must be emphasized. In it, we have the Public Ministry seeking to fulfill, with increasing quality, its mission of defending diffuse and collective rights, in the case in question, the right to education for potentially vulnerable populations”, he said.
“The three Universities are seeking, with the support of Fapesp, to generate quality information on the topic, in order to assist in the formulation of public policies based on data, and, at the same time, contributing to the training of high-level people with sensitivity to social problems that affect our community”, added the dean.
“Congratulations to Professor Fabiana, congratulations to FE (Faculty of Education), congratulations to State Universities and Fapesp. Congratulations and many thanks to the Public Ministry of the State of São Paulo for this opportunity to make our activity of generating knowledge and training people an instrument for improving the lives of people in our community”, concluded Meirelles.
“I would like to highlight the unprecedented nature of this project”, declared the Special Secretary for Collective Protection, Susana Henriques da Costa, who represented the Attorney General of Justice, Mario Sarrubbo, at the event. “The Public Ministry of São Paulo has been reflecting on how to choose our priority agendas”, said Susana, emphasizing that the rapprochement with civil society and academia marks the current management.
