After four years of implementation of militarization in public schools in the Federal District, specialists and entities criticize the model and bet on the slowdown or end of the project. The indices that allow evaluating student performance have not yet been presented and there is an increase in occurrences recorded in the school environment of civic-military institutions, which goes against the justification used to establish shared management.
“There is still no official feedback from the Secretariat of Education of the Federal District (SEEDF) on the pedagogical performance of male and female students who are inserted in the system of militarization of schools. As for the issue of violence, this system has already demonstrated inefficiency in reducing the rates of cases. According to a survey carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office for the Defense of Education (Proeduc), the average number of infractions within civic-military schools doubled between 2019, when the program started, and 2022”, explains the teacher and director of the Union of DF teachers (Sinpro-DF), Márcia Gilda.
The “quarterization of schools” is criticized for diminishing the democracy of educational institutions and transforming them into an environment of fear and intimidation. Experts show that, in the name of discipline, children and adolescents have their autonomy and the healthy development of their identity compromised by the repression of critical thinking.
“Militarization completely changes the dynamics of the school space, which is one of movement, debates and the construction of youth protagonism, of the development of racial and gender belonging, since it brings a series of norms arising from barracks, where the watchword is obey, and the behavior and presentation of male and female students are standardized, ignoring their individuality and their construction as a person. Militarization ignores the context in which the school is inserted, its socioeconomic and cultural aspect”, says Márcia Gilda.
The expectation of entities linked to education, such as Sinpro-DF, is that the progress of the project is coming to an end, especially after Lula’s election. On the first day of government, the Ministry of Education (MEC), now headed by Camilo Santana (PT), extinguished the directorate of civic-military schools, created during the Bolsonaro administration to encourage the militarization of public education. Previously, in May last year, the Public Ministry of the Federal District and Territories (MPDFT) revoked a technical note that made the implementation of shared management in public schools in the Federal District legal.
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Shared management
Military model was implemented in the first year of Ibaneis Rocha’s government / Photo: Acácio Pinheiro/ Agência Brasília.
Implemented in 2019, during the first term of Governor Ibaneis Rocha (MDB) and under strong pressure from the opposition, the school militarization project provides for shared management between the DF Education Department (SEEDF), responsible for the institution’s pedagogical administration, and the Military Police of the Federal District (PMDF), which manages the discipline.
The ordinance also establishes that the two administrations are at the same hierarchical level and that they are autonomous, “not being conditioned to the approval of the other”, but that the decisions must be “submitted” by the other party, due to the “duty of consideration”.
The text, quite generic, does not explain what it is not to be conditioned, but to be considered. According to experts, this means, in practice, that the performance of military agents in schools does not go through the scrutiny and evaluations of pedagogical managers.
According to data from the Department of Education, released by the Brasilia Agency, there are currently 15 civic-military schools in the DF. Two other teaching institutions are negotiating to join the model.
Performance
The shared management project for civic-military schools was implemented with the justification that military discipline would reduce violence, improving student performance. Four years after the beginning of the militarization of education, data proving this improvement has not yet been released.
In the order of May 2022 in which the MPDFT revoked the legality of shared management, the body pointed out that three years after the beginning of the project’s implementation, the Basic Education Development Index (Ideb) of the participating units, “nor the school dropout rate, pass/fail rate, number of transfer requests, among other information requested by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, in order to demonstrate the improvement in the quality of teaching”.
Still according to the document, the adoption of an authoritarian policy in public schools “is incompatible with the principles that govern the Brazilian State and constitutes a true social setback”.
In May 2022, organizations, parliamentarians and students organized an act to call for an end to militarization in schools. / Photo: Reproduction Michel Platini
In his master’s thesis research “Civic-military schools in the Federal District, performance, discipline and violence: the view of actors in the school community”, professor Antonio Eustáquio Ribeiro demonstrates that, although the researched period can be considered short (three years) , it is already possible to have some indications that there was no increase in the school performance of militarized institutions.
“The data from the schools that made up the pilot project (CED 01 from Estrutural, CED 03 from Sobradinho, CED 07 from Ceilândia and CED 308 from Recanto das Emas), started in the 2019 school year, based on the results of ENEM, SAEB and data from the schools themselves, do not show this, presenting a behavior very similar to what there was before, or even slightly worse”, said the researcher in an interview with Sinpro-DF.
Peace culture?
According to Joint Ordinance No. 1, of January 31, 2019, the project between the State Department of Education and the State Department of Public Security provided for tackling violence in the school environment, promoting a culture of peace and the full exercise of citizenship.
Data presented by Proeduc, however, contradict this statement. According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, in 2019, 199 occurrences in civic-military schools were reported to the Child and Adolescent Police Station (DCA), which, considering the school year of 200 school days, means a conflict every 48 hours. In 2022, the number doubled.
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Intimidation and censorship
The militarized schools in the DF have also faced recurrent episodes of intimidation and censorship by the police.
“Several military personnel, trained and used to an environment in which they effectively deal with real violence, ended up leading violent episodes against students and even teachers and administrators, which is the opposite of what should guide a fraternal, inclusive and emancipating school”, evaluates Antonio Eustáquio.
Centro Educacional 01 (CED 01), located in Cidade Estrutural, was one of the first schools in Brasília to adopt hybrid school management. In November 2021, students and the deputy director of the unit, Luciana Martins, were censored due to an exhibition held at the school on Black Consciousness Day, in which some works showed texts and cartoons that portrayed police violence.
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Luciana Martins was exonerated from the position of vice-principal, which generated protests from the students. During a demonstration against the dismissal, the Federal District Military Police sergeant and disciplinary monitor at the school, Frederico Nicurgo de Oliveira, threatened two students from the unit. The situation was caught on video recorded by a student, which shows the police intimidating young people.
At the end of February this year, a 14-year-old girl studying at a civic-military school in Sobradinho suffered religious intolerance against African-influenced beliefs. The student was barred from school for using a string of beads.
An Umbanda fan, the girl was wearing the religious symbol and was scolded by a military police officer who works at the teaching unit. The case was denounced by the priest Leandro Mota Pereira, known as Pai Leandro de Oxossi, who was called by the victim and went to the school to talk to the management. According to him, one of the military police officers mistreated him during the meeting.
According to teacher Márcia Gilda, the civic-military school environment is more conducive to this type of occurrence, as “there are rules for the personal presentation of students”.
“Short hair for the boys, hair tied in buns for the girls and just one small earring. There is no room for dyed hair, piercings, necklaces and bracelets. The necklace worn by the student is not intended to be an adornment, an ornament, it represents protection and has an important meaning for the community that practices religions of African origin”, he explains.
Discipline of bodies
Project is an attempt to discipline poor bodies and make them passive and obedient subjects. / Photo: Tony Oliveira/Agência Brasília
The public schools that went through the process of militarization are located on the outskirts of the DF. According to researcher Antonio Eustáquio, this territorial concentration of the militarization of teaching demonstrates that the project is an attempt to discipline poor bodies and make them passive and obedient subjects.
“I believe that what is intended is, using Foucault’s concept of the discipline of bodies, to seek a training, a subjugation of sectors of society that are invariably considered inferior by the dominant classes, that is, the poor. accommodates the dominant view that the poor should be given a school that makes them productive to be passive employees, without critical questioning capacity, just like what was done in the civil/military dictatorship of 1964, which sought to suppress any questioning capacity” , he says.
Controle social
The program’s rules state that, before being implemented, the shared management model is presented to educational institutions. If there is interest, faculty, parents and students participate in a public consultation to vote on the implementation of the project.
According to experts, society sees militarization as a form of social control, which is why they adhere to shared management. Families have the false expectation that the presence of the police will strengthen discipline, reducing violence.
“I think that several factors led society to support this proposal: the violence that has grown in cities, conservatism in the face of the countless challenges that have been presented to schools, such as the gender and race debate. It is important to note that violence does not it is born in the school, it comes from the outside in. And it is outside that the police must act, in the perimeter that surrounds the school. The school must be plural and respect the diversity that makes up society as a whole”, says Márcia Gilda.
According to the teacher, the bill that tried to implement the “Programa Escola Sem Partido”, although it was not approved, permeated “the imagination of society, criminalizing male and female teachers and bringing a feeling of distrust; thus, the police would be welcome to school”.
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Source: BdF Distrito Federal
Editing: Flavia Quirino
