LATIN AMERICAN CENTER OF
RESEARCH IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Luma Doné Miranda
Substitute professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Brasília (IPOL/UnB), pursuing a post-doctoral internship at the Latin American Center for Research in Higher Education of the Postgraduate Program in Sociology and Anthropology - PPGSA under the supervision of professor Dr. Maria Ligia de Oliveira Barbosa with PDJ/CNPq scholarship. PhD in Social Sciences from the State University of Rio de Janeiro with a scholarship from FAPERJ. Master in Social Sciences from the State University of Rio de Janeiro with a CAPES scholarship. He has a bachelor's degree in Political Science from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro - where he received a research and extension scholarship from the Tutorial Education Program (PET) of the Ministry of Education - and a degree in Social Sciences from the same university. She is a researcher at the Latin American Center for Research in Higher Education (CeLAPES/UFRJ) and at the Social Sciences and Education Research Group (GPCSE/UERJ).
The renewal of the quota law and the future of affirmative actions in federal higher education
On October 24, 2023, the National Congress approved the reformulation of the quota system in federal education. The result of a Bill filed by deputy Maria do Rosário (PT/RS) and other deputies from different parties, the project brought important issues to the design of the policy, such as the expansion of postgraduate studies and the reduction in the value of the criterion of income. It is important to highlight that there was no national evaluation policy in the ten years of implementation of the law and what we have is data from some researchers who were interested in evaluating the policy. However, we can understand the renewal of quotas as a process of maturation of this type of affirmative action in Brazil.
Since the 2000s, when it was established, through state law no. 3,524, the reservation of 50% of places at state universities in Rio de Janeiro for students who had attended high school in public schools, affirmative action policies have received different contours depending on specific contexts. At the federal level, for example, the first initiatives occurred through institutional deliberations and had a design that encompassed different groups. In this sense, a public university could have affirmative actions only for public school students and another could cover black, brown, indigenous and low-income people. Thus, the approval of law no. 12,711/12 provided the convergence of some criteria for all federal institutions.
When analyzing the reformulation of this law, it is possible to notice two major fronts of changes. The first involves the expansion of quotas for postgraduate studies. Before, we had a scenario very similar to the pre-quota law where some postgraduate programs developed the policy through institutional deliberations. However, unlike the reservation of undergraduate places, quotas for postgraduate studies, now on a large scale, will need to be thought of in a different dynamic. Particularly in candidate classification models and scholarship distribution. The second front consists of evaluating public policy. The new law determines the need for annual reports prepared by the Ministry of Education with data on access, retention and completion. Furthermore, every ten years, there must be a special assessment of the access of beneficiary groups.
With these changes, we increasingly consolidate affirmative action policies in Brazil. The great challenge of the next decade will be student retention. In particular, by reducing the income cutoff to one minimum wage per capita and the incorporation of an article (7°-A) specific to students in situations of social vulnerability. In this sense, we can say that new ways of implementing the law must be thought of.