We publish the english translation of an article that was published on A Nova Democracia website regarding the National Meeting of Pedagogy Students in Brazil.
Video calling for the event.
During the second day of activities of the 38th National Meeting of Pedagogy Students (ENEPe), which is being held in União dos Palmares (Alagoas state), important debates regarding university autonomy and an education to serve the people, and not he monopolies, were realized on July 12.
The first event of the day had the theme of University autonomy under attack! University democracy and the students participation in the universities!
The first lecture of the event, of professor Batista (People’s School) began his exposition by greeting the centenary of the Córdoba Revolt, an historical episode of the students rebellion for a democratic reform on the universities. He expounded that this kind of reform had never occurred on the universities in Brazil, and this institution is still serving the three big structures – latifundium, imperialism and big bourgeoisie. The professor was emphatic on what must be the role of the universities:”A university to serve the popular classes. A national, scientific and mass university. A university of a new type”.
The professor highlighted the importance of the defense of the students co-govern, which means, an administration composed in half by students and half by education workers, defending the students in the front lines of the management of its universities. “We must follow the example of the combatant students of UERJ [State University of Rio de Janeiro] with the “Ocupa Bandeijão”[more information], follow the example of the combatant youth in Chile, follow the example of the indomitable spirit of the Palestine youth and transform the universities in true combat trenches!”.
Taina, member of the National Executive of Pedagogy Students, reinforced the demand of the co-govern in her speeches as the principal struggle for autonomy in the university.
To exemplify the frailty of democracy and autonomy in the universities, she denounced the fascist practices of the Federal University of Alagoas for the expulsion and political pursuit of the student Tarsila.
The student had entered the UFAL (Federal University of Alagoas) for the first semester of 2018 in the course of pedagogy but she started to attend classes as a listener in the end of 2017 with the full permission and knowledge of the professors. The student was expelled by the rectory of one of the classes, denying her right as listener student and cancelled her enrollment.
At the end of the lecture, the pedagogy students chanted the slogan: Pull down the university walls, serve the people in the countryside and in the city!
Also present in the event was the professor, writer and PhD in education Marilsa Miranda de Souza. She went to the event to present the theme 200 years of Karl Marx – Marxism and Education, and for spreading her book and doctorate thesis Imperialism and Education in the Countryside.
During her lecture, she explained about the Marxist perspective regarding education, opposing to subjectivist and post-modernist theories that only focus on the individual and its personal growth and deny the principality of the political education and the forge for the social practice.
With the word, she points out what Marx thought as essential for an education with a class character and serving the people: “An education that unites the intellectual instruction, the physical education and the technological introduction” and she stressed the importance of the “unification of the manual labor with intellectual labor in our schools”. However, without illusions with this old bourgeois-latifundium state, Marilsa affirms: “No truly popular education proposal can be implemented without the working class having seized the production means before. The principal is the seizure of power. To build the socialist education it is necessary to first achieve socialism”.
The lecture was greatly applauded by the present students.
At the end of the second day of activities (July 12), the pedagogy students were divided in three groups for debate. The discussions were initiated for the propositions regarding the conformation of the Struggle Plans for pedagogy, which will be voted at the end of the event on Sunday.
