Sao Paulo Officials Declare ‘War’ on Students’ Occupy Movement
Sao Paulo Officials Declare ‘War’ on Students’ Occupy Movement
Posted 3 December 2015 7:57 GMT
Three weeks ago, Brazilian teens from Sao Paulo started seizing public schools due to be shut down by a new state program dubbed “reorganization.” When talks with the government stalled, youths occupied 193 institutions. On Sunday, November 29, an audio recording leaked onto the Internet revealing that a senior official in Brazil's Education Department says the government is “at war” with Sao Paulo's students, and has instructed school principals to demobilize the occupation movement.
Despite this controversy and student movement, Sao Paulo's Governor officially launched the “reorganization” program on December 1, authorizing transferring the faculty from schools slated for closure.
Under the state's “reorganization plan,” 43 percent of the schools in Sao Paulo will offer only one of the three levels of education in the Brazilian system, instead of offering primary through secondary education all under the same roof. In Brazil, basic education is divided into three levels: two kinds of “elementary school” (first to fifth grade and then sixth to ninth grade) followed by a final three years of “high school.”
Currently, most public schools in São Paulo offer more than one level, but that changes under the new plan. Most importantly, the new policy results in the closure of 93 different schools across the state, and another thousand affected in less drastic ways. More than 300,000 students are expected to need to transfer to new schools.
More:
https://globalvoices.org/2015/12/03/sao-paulo-officials-declare-war-on-students-occupy-movement/