In the end of last month students, teachers and activists in some of Brazil's university cities took to the streets denouncing the continuous cutbacks in public education. Instead of properly funding education and providing the affordable accommodation, food or materials required, the Brazilian government, in an attempt to offload the effects of the crisis onto the teachers and students, tries to cut corners at every opportunity possible.
In Rio de Janeiro, about 100 students gathered at the main entrance of UERJ’s campus of Maracanã late in the afternoon and marched through the streets of Vila Isabel. In the front of the demonstration a large banner was carried with the slogan “Against the privatization of the university”. Despite police provocations, the demonstration was carried out until its end, where a doll resembling Michel Temer was burned.
In São Paulo students set ablaze a barricade on the Highway BR-116, one of the most frequented highways in the country. Later the same day students, among them comrades from the Movimento Estudantil Popular Revolucionário (MEPR) and the Unidade Vermelha - Liga da Juventude Revolucionária (UV-LJR), took part in a rally marching through the central district.
In Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais, the Executiva Nacional de Estudantes de Pedagogia (ExNEPe) organized a demonstration at the Faculty of Education of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Apart from singing songs and shouting slogans, a group of students blocked the Avenida Antônio Carlos by erecting and burning a barricade of tires.
