High School: Democracy and Evidence of the NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training)

Among the most diverse and varied sectors of Brazilian society, there is absolute consensus that education was one of the main targets of the attacks suffered by the coup d'état in the country in 2015/2016. The conservative and ultraliberal wave, in the cultural, religious, and economic landscape, drastically and dramatically impacted the Brazilian educational structure. Rebuilding education and confronting these retrograde, market-driven forces is crucial for the future of our nation as a whole.

We can list some emblematic examples of this abysmal collapse, in order to illustrate the dismantling with the necessary depth, extent, and dimension: high school reform, the National Common Curriculum Base, boycott of the national education plan, attacks on teacher training, scientific research, and public universities and federal technical schools, the expansion of the civic-military school, homeschooling, gag law, non-partisan school, setbacks in the inclusion of people with disabilities, privatization of public schools, incisive and progressive reduction of investments, among others.

In the assessment of a significant portion of Brazilian education's social representation, this series of setbacks demands broad and urgent repeal or, in a few specific cases, structural changes for the good of national education. Popular and labor movements, intellectuals, academia, teachers, and students are aware of the need for change to begin a profound and effective reconstruction of national education.

One of the most debated educational topics in recent days is the so-called New High School (NEM). In the pre-coup period, there was a great debate in Brazilian society, as well as in parliament, about the topic of high school education, which proposed a set of changes in the structure of this important school stage, such as access, retention, training, avoiding curricular fragmentation, involving young people in the construction, the model to be followed, among other issues. At that time, a proposal built by many hands and minds was being developed with the aim of shedding light and providing direction to this significant formative phase.

With the coup against President Dilma Rousseff, the coup government of Temer and his minister Mendonça Filho, owner of private schools, summarily sent to the National Congress a proposal for a broad and profound reform of secondary education, through a provisional measure. The proposal submitted and approved by the government did not take into account any of the reflections considered and debated by the educational movement and society since 2012. Therefore, the New Secondary Education system is the result of an educational proposal spearheaded by the businessmen and mercenaries of national education: private foundations, social organizations, private education cartels, movements for the privatization of Brazilian public education, among other representatives of these interests. 

Since the victory of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the transition, and the installation of the new government and the Ministry of Education, we have had the democratic opportunity to express our position for the immediate repeal of the New High School curriculum by the current federal government. This pressure, followed by a possible decision, will mark a new phase for Brazilian education. In this sense, President Lula must give a clear, firm, and assertive signal to the entire society.

Minister Camilo Santana and other leaders of the Ministry of Education believe that immediately revoking the high school curriculum, as we advocate, could cause two setbacks to principles that are non-negotiable in the current ministry: both the democratic principle and the principle of scientific evidence. For my part, I consider these principles evidently noble, but null and void given the objective reality and the historical circumstances we have experienced in this recent period. 

Regarding the democratic aspect, Minister Santana states that changes cannot be undertaken in the same way as the coup plotters, whom we have fought so hard against. He explains that we cannot revoke secondary education and simply present a new bill, otherwise, according to him, we would be acting like our tormentors. In other words, according to the Minister, acting from the top down, without debate, ethical or moral basis, without social participation and the participation of the educational sectors, we would be reproducing the same modus operandi of the coup plotters.

It is important to reiterate that the New High School curriculum was approved by the National Congress in the wake of the 2015/2016 coup d'état, without any debate and refuting a proposal built and discussed over five years by the Brazilian educational community. We also emphasize that President Lula's victory in 2022 consecrated at the polls the downfall of the coup plotters and the subsequent need to rebuild the country and education at new levels. We also recall that society debated and built, in the period prior to the coup, a comprehensive proposal for High School education, which involved broad sectors of education and therefore had social and political legitimacy. We further emphasize that the provisional measure for the New High School curriculum of the Temer government was approved and imposed on Brazilian society without any debate and the due and expected popular participation. Thus, all this represents a disproportionate and illegitimate attack against education and the country. Reviving the pre-coup proposal and bringing it to public debate is the bare minimum that the educational community demands.

The second issue raised by the Minister of Education and his aides at the Ministry of Education concerns the principle of scientific evidence. According to the minister, it would be denialism to revoke the New High School curriculum without a body of scientific evidence demonstrating its virtues, shortcomings, problems, course corrections, and other arguments. According to his logic, we could not, therefore, be denialists, acting like Bolsonaro supporters, without evaluating the scientific evidence.

In disagreement, we note that the reform imposed and implemented in recent years in Brazil has been widely questioned and rejected by the education, government, and society of the United States, the country of origin of the concept of this New High School, a pedagogical model adopted about twenty years ago in that country, with the same concepts and principles introduced in Temer's reform. In the US itself, its implementation was abandoned; they are building another high school model from these ruins. 

While the evidence in the United States is already conclusive, here in Brazil, even in the initial implementation phase, we already have clear and concrete proof of the ongoing setbacks and an even greater disaster looming.

A particular key issue has been and remains at the heart of this debate: the educational model to provide quality and effectiveness to this stage of schooling. In this field, I highlight: access, retention, curricular concentration, vocational training, encouraging young people towards comprehensive education, enhancing the work of teachers, and valuing the education of young people from the periphery and the poorest social strata of society. 

However, the initial steps taken by the New High School curriculum challenge both the democratic and dialogical approach taken by historical sectors of Brazilian education, and the objectives set to address the real structural problems identified over time.