MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil: Lula launches 100 new educational training centers

Education is an investment; building a prison is spending, Lula argued

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva launched 100 new campuses of Federal Institutes of Education, Science, and Technology (IFS) this week nationwide because “it is through education that we will become a first-world country.”

 The head of state also pointed out during a ceremony at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia that this new undertaking “reflects the importance that the Federal Government attaches to the announcement of the construction of another 100 Federal Institutes of Education, Science, and Technology nationwide.”

“When we talk about investment in education, it is because a profession gives men and women a citizenship status that, without education, we cannot achieve,“ he added.

”Spending is prison money. It is spending a fortune to fight drugs, contraband, [and] organized crime. That is an expenditure,“ but not when the money goes to ”education, the formation of our children, giving peace of mind to parents at home,” the leftwing leader also underlined.

The new institutes will have 140,000 openings for technical courses integrated into secondary education curricula within the R$ 3.9 billion (US$ 780 million) so-called New Growth Acceleration Program.

With the new 100 campuses, the Federal Network now has 782 units, which for Lula is still not enough. “We have a goal: to score a thousand goals. And our thousand goals will be to build a thousand Federal Institutes in this country so that we can definitively solve the problem of education”, highlighted Lula. “I remember [footballers] Romário, Pelé, and Túlio Maravilha wanting to score 1,000 goals. Why can't we try to reach 1,000 Federal Institutes in Brazil?” he argued. “We want to share the things that are working in Brazil. It is not personal merit. It is the result of the collective struggle for education.”

“Since 2003, we have created more institutes, universities, and federal schools than any other government,” Lula also underlined while noting the importance of education for women, which “is fundamental to break the cycle of violence; even more so now, at a time when the gender issue is gaining centrality.”

“By having a profession, women can guarantee themselves a space to compete in the labor market as well,” he went on. “Normally one sees a woman in need, she suffers with her partner, she is raped at home, she is assaulted, and she does not take an attitude because she does not have a profession,” Lula elaborated. “When a woman has a profession and has a salary, and can afford her life, she will not live with any man she does not like,” he insisted.

Education Minister Camilo Santana explained that it was the Brazilian society that was demanding these measures. “We have had a demand from the mayors, from society. And that is good. Society wants more because the federal institutes bring effective results,” he stressed. Authorities analyzed the demographic gaps and the proportion of the population in each state to determine where to launch one of the new campuses or boost the existing ones through the addition of libraries and cafeterias. “Where there is no restaurant for students, we will create a restaurant. Where there is no laboratory for a certain course, we will do it, and each dean is talking to the Education Ministry to state their needs and priorities,” Santana told reporters.