THE DESTRUCTION OF SCIENCE AND THE PUBLIC UNIVERSITY IN BRAZIL BY THE BOLSONARO GOVERNMENT

Fernando Alcoforado*

The cuts in financial resources in the ministries of Science and Technology and Education carried out by the Bolsonaro government contribute to the destruction of research activities in all scientific areas and public higher education in Brazil. The situation was already problematic during the Dilma Rousseff administration and became catastrophic in the Bolsonaro administration that accelerates the process with drastic reduction in the budget. Starting in 2014, the crisis that reached the science that continues to this day began. The budget of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCTIC) began to suffer constant cuts during the following years of the last Dilma Rousseff government.

Brazilian science is at a critical moment. The most recent measure of the Bolsonaro government has hit the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) under the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications (MCTIC) with a cut of 42.27% in the MCTIC budget which puts in risk the financing of around 11 thousand projects and 80 thousand grants financed by the main agency to promote research in the country.

Never in the history of Brazil have there been cuts of the magnitude of those that were decreed recently by the Bolsonaro government. They are extremely heavy cuts and, if not reversed, will destroy Brazilian science. These cuts represent a deadly assault on development and national sovereignty itself. Research in all areas, including the humanities, is at stake. The first affected are laboratory-dependent surveys, which are already running out of maintenance, lacking materials, and lagging infrastructure.

Congress had approved to 2019 a budget of R$ 5.1 billion for MCTIC, however, the government decreed a 42% cut in the ministry budget, reducing the resources available to the ministry to about R$ 2.9 billion. The CNPq president, Jo?o Luiz Filgueiras, told the press that the agency should have funds to pay scholarships only until September of this year. Experts estimate that this amount will cover payments only through July. Entities linked to science also say that the cuts announced by the Bolsonaro government reach the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development, which finances the infrastructure of scientific institutions. The fund had 80% of its resources cut.

What is occurring, in reality, is a dismantling of the national science and technology system, jeopardizing research groups set up several years ago. The current budget reduction may affect large projects such as Sirius and the National Laboratory of Light Síncotron, which Brazil has built roughly, or the Laboratory of Science and Computation (LCC), which may not be able to operate without maintenance. With the lack of maintenance of laboratories, which deteriorate with time, the reduction of investments also represents a loss of resources already applied in the sector. In addition, it drives the brain drain, with researchers leaving Brazil to carry out their work in countries offering better conditions. This means that Brazil will be increasingly behind other countries. Brazil invests less than 1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the area of science, technology and innovation. In some European countries, the percentage is around 3%, and in the United States, it is around 2%.

The destruction that reaches the area of science has also recently reached that of education, with a 30% cut in the budget of federal universities in Brazil by the Bolsonaro government. The Ministry of Education has promoted a cut of R $ 230 million in funds destined to federal universities at the end of April this year, after Abraham Weintraub took over the ministry. Although the cuts reached several units, three of them were most affected: Federal of Bahia (Ufba), Brasília (UnB) and Federal Fluminense (UFF), which had 30% of budget allocations blocked.

Weintraub said the budget cuts at the three institutions are due to the fact that they are underperforming academics and promote "shambles" on their campuses. The value of the cuts in UFBA, UNB and UFF corresponds to more than half of the cut imposed on all universities. According to the minister, universities have allowed political events, partisan demonstrations or parties inappropriate to the university environment to take place in their premises. For him, the presences of the “landless” and “naked people” in the institutions are examples of a shambles. Regarding the obscene photos exhibited by the MEC as an example of a shambles in federal universities, it is important to note that they were produced with the deliberate Machiavellian purpose to denigrate the image of the universities and justify the cut of funds by the Bolsonaro government.

One fact that contradicts Weintraub's argument is that the three universities cited, Federal University of Bahia (Ufba), Brasília (UnB) and Federal Fluminense (UFF), are well evaluated, both in Brazil and abroad. All have a grade 5, the maximum value in the MEC's General Course Index (IGC) performance. The minister's statement does not correspond to reality when he says that public universities produce nothing. More than 95% of what science produces in Brazil is in public universities, and a significant part in the federal ones.

What the Minister of Education does not recognize is that universities are democratic spaces, with freedom of action and manifestation, even to the detriment of rectors. What is done in public universities is within democratic normality without the curtailment of manifestations. The MEC decision is an example of authoritarianism and criticism annihilation. The action is criminal. It is a crime of responsibility because it violates the autonomy of universities. The government cannot use budget cuts to carry out retaliatory, punitive actions. This is misuse of purpose of the MEC. If something is wrong, it is up to the MEC to open an investigation and investigate.

It should be noted that Brazil is the last country in the world placed in spending on higher education, according to the OECD, whose situation will worsen with the cut of 30% in the budget of federal universities. This cut is a deathblow in the activities of today's federal universities wholly lacking in resources that will be unable to honor their most elementary commitments. According to OECD data, private and public expenditures with each university student in Brazil represent the equivalent of US $ 3,722 per year. In absolute terms, this is the lowest of the 39 countries examined.

What is happening with science and education in Brazil is part of the strategy of the Bolsonaro government to destroy what was built since 1930, since the Getúlio Vargas government, responsible for the modernization of the Brazilian nation. This destructive action adds to others like the public banks that will be gradually dismantled. Caixa Econ?mica Federal, with more than a century of life, will sell credit card services and one of its huge sources of profit, the lotteries. If it depended on the Bolsonaro government, the fate of the institution would be its immediate privatization. Petrobras and all state-owned companies would have the same destination with their privatization or denationalization. The Bolsonaro government knows that it cannot fulfill its dream of privatizing Petrobras in a single move. Then, little by little starting selling the distributor BR, followed by the refineries. Federal universities also go to the guillotine. All this is being done in the shadows.

* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 14 books addressing issues such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and Climate Change, The Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and The Great Scientific, Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.