By JOÃO CARLOS SALLES*

Andifes warns about the dismantling of federal universities, but its formal language and political timidity end up mitigating the severity of the crisis, while the government fails to prioritize higher education

1.

A note from Andifes deserves our full attention. The association has historical weight, is associated with the transformation policies of federal universities, and is one of their most qualified voices, alongside the national representations of our categories. For this very reason, using a formula now recurrent in its documents, we must express “deep concern” with the content of its most recent texts.

Indeed, Andifes has not failed to fulfill its role or to point out truly worrying facts, especially regarding budget cuts, contingencies and blockages. However, it seems to do everything in its power to avoid stating a basic truth: higher education is not a priority for the current government.

Addressing an association that I value greatly and friends who are leaders for whom I have personal affection, I cannot help but point out, even without holding any position and being just a professor with some institutional experience and an already extensive reflection on public universities: Andifes, note after note, has wrapped the worrying data it presents in rhetorical expedients that diminish their gravity.

In doing so, he does not denounce, but rather laments; he does not criticize, but rather ends up excusing. His notes, then, self-destruct and end up fulfilling a protocolary role, which we know is contrary to the individual combativeness of each member of the current board and foreign to the history of the association.

It is worth reiterating. We are well aware of the value of Andifes and we hold each of its leaders in high regard, but they seem to be out of step with the worsening situation that they nevertheless denounce. We cannot imagine that they are afraid that criticism will lead to retaliation; much more likely is the fear (quite mistaken!) that criticism of a progressive government could favor the return of the recent obscurantism.

Reacting to the impacts of Decree No. 12.448, of April 30, 2025, which limits the monthly budget execution to 1/18 of the total authorized for the fiscal year, the recent note of May 14 from ANDIFES is clear.[I] It shows that, objectively, the situation at federal universities is worsening in a disturbing and, it should be added, potentially devastating way, with an immediate and perverse impact on student assistance, thus affecting the most vulnerable and compromising the entire inclusion policy.

As much as we distrust the interests of the mainstream media and are aware of the biased interpretations of the mainstream media, newspaper articles about the situation of universities are multiplying. They reveal to the public a bleak picture in our institutions – a picture that, by the way, each one of us witnesses directly and, although it is distributed differently in our institutions, can jointly affect the quality of public higher education, in addition to already compromising the State's legal obligation to finance it. As a result, the Brazilian nation itself, as a democratic project, is under threat.

Andifes' caution, although mistaken, is not without reason. We cannot forget that we have very recently faced different forms of obscurantism, in different degrees, from the period of polite mesoclisis (when rectors were coerced into taking them to university) to the period of the most blatant ignorance (with direct and explicit attacks on science and universities). Certainly, regardless of the degree, we will fight to ensure that obscurantism of this kind never returns.

On the other hand, it is also an obvious fact that higher education, previously attacked in an abject manner, has not had the due and deserved priority in the current government, which is thus committing a serious error – an error fueled, at times, by the false narrative of a dichotomy between basic education and higher education, when, in truth, attention to education needs to involve all levels, together.

2.

Would we then be tied with our hands, limited to lamenting and expressing “deep concern,” because in the face of a tragedy? Now, the notion of tragedy in some of its most classical meanings cannot be accepted, as it could involve a kind of surrender to fate, a contortion of history toward an event whose force would seem inescapable.

Accepting this meaning for the tragic situation currently being experienced would imply allowing the entire society to condemn itself, thus renouncing the still dormant project of a truly democratic nation.

We cannot accept such condemnation. However, given the deprivation of our institutions, reactions run the risk of oscillating between the pathetic and the ridiculous. Notes continue to be and will always be important, and they fulfill their role for Andifes and the rectors when they write them. Nevertheless, some can even serve to numb, because they are timid, if not lenient. Furthermore, right or wrong in their form and timing, the time for exclusive reactions through notes seems to be over.

What effect, after all, can institutional notes have now, if they are limited to a protest – especially when they already advance an almost apology for the simple fact of existing, nurturing, who knows, the hope of resolving behind the scenes a situation of such complexity?

This failure seems clear in the Andifes note, which, after presenting the serious situation, ponders: “We recognize that the Ministry of Education has maintained a stance of open dialogue with universities and demonstrated sensitivity to higher education issues.”

A truly redundant and innocuous observation, made worse by the at least protocolary acknowledgement of adjustments that have already proven to be insufficient: “the cuts accumulated over several years continue to produce significant effects, despite the MEC having carried out some budget adjustments recently”.

Courtesy is a value, let us not forget. The note cannot be condemned for being polite, but rather for this courtesy taking on a meaning contrary to its purpose. In a situation of deep unrest, what is a condition for the possibility of dialogue can become a means of alienating other actors, namely the community itself and the various social movements that may have an interest in a nation whose main agenda involves the qualified education of our people, science, arts, and cultures.

As for being redundant, such concessions now seem insufficient and are more about etiquette than about delving deeper into the points. They sound as if the good will of the Ministry of Education (which we do not doubt) or the competence and seriousness of the current Secretary of Higher Education (well known to all of us) justified some compromise with the difficult budgetary framework, when we know that accepting the current contingencies could jeopardize the government's own best projects.

Andifes's task is not to stand by and wait. It must exert the necessary pressure on society, including facilitating the defense, within the government itself, of the best interests of education by those administrators who, by their own trajectory, are our natural allies.

It is Andifes' duty to clearly state the necessary redefinition of national priorities. Without this mobilization, the internal management of the crisis in the ministries will perhaps mitigate the problem, but it will probably be doomed to failure, no matter how calm the dialogue is now, no matter how competent and sensitive the managers are.

Palliative measures to release resources cannot replace joint action aimed at protecting the entire federal system and ensuring, for example, that there are sufficient resources in the LOA to effectively run the Andifes matrix. For all these reasons, precisely to value the struggle of Andifes and to encourage the action of those in the current government who understand the strategic importance of federal universities, we must focus on the central statement in the note, which not only deserves emphasis, but also calls for the most consequential measures to be taken from it, with a response from the government that is commensurate with the gravity of the problem:

Federal universities urgently need to release their budget so that regular monthly payments are not compromised. Furthermore, the budget approved by Congress for this year is insufficient for universities to honor their commitments.

In this sense, the restoration of the cuts approved by Congress in the 2025 LOA and a supplement to this year's budget are equally urgent and essential measures to ensure the functioning of federal universities. (“Note from Andifes on the budget situation of federal universities”).

3.

Emphasized and without pretense, the message is clear and is in line with the stated urgency. After all, in such an adverse situation for education, the government itself can no longer remain silent, precisely because it is progressive and (we hope!) determined to honor the movement to expand universities that it once inaugurated.

Faced with such a serious threat, the government should be able to call on the entire Brazilian society, if it is determined to protect long-term projects and, however, considers that it does not have the strength alone to redefine the direction of education and national priorities.

Andifes itself has the authority and legitimacy to call on academia and society to engage in an in-depth debate on education, offering solutions that include political solutions and not just tortuous paths to adapt universities to market or government demands.

The capacity for innovation, after all, which has been presented as a path by some, is certainly part of our duty towards society, but it does not define us or justify us, as those who developed the Entrepreneurial and Innovative Institutes and Universities Program – the ill-fated “Future-se” – proposed.

It is up to Andifes, therefore, to provoke discussion on public funding for education, thus refining its own matrix for distributing resources to federal institutions, so that the conditions for the proper functioning of the system are reestablished and we follow the path of affirmation of universities and not their mere survival – due to which, once taken restrictively, the essential and defining commitment of our institutions to teaching, research and extension can be broken.

The rectors, in turn, while they do need to continue their daily fight for the budget, cannot be satisfied with the game of raising amendments and other extra-budgetary resources. Their situation is even worse when they feel so isolated and lost that they believe it would be sensible to make desperate appeals to the private sector – appeals that they certainly would not make if they had the entire system fighting in their favor. In both cases, the idea of ​​a lack of commitment by the State to public financing, under the conditions provided for in the Federal Constitution and the LDB, is only reinforced.

Here is a caution worth remembering. If the system works, no one will let anyone else go. And the federal system is defined by the commensurability of conditions, by the quality common to all institutions, as public, free and socially referenced universities.

It is neither polite nor civilized to leave any institution in a state of despair, and this is all the more imperative when it concerns the largest of our federal universities. In this specific case, its ordeal victimizes the entire system in a very objective and now visible way.

Together with Andifes and as joint representatives of a system of federal universities, the rectors do indeed have the duty to launch this discussion within the university and for the entire society. And this is, it is worth agreeing, urgent – ​​a word that we do not have the right to use in vain.

Therefore, our leaders should refuse to be involved in an unbridled, fragmented and competitive search for extra-budgetary resources, just as it is not fair that they pay the political price of being forced to take severe measures to restrict spending – which, by all indications, are necessary.

It is true that containment measures have served us as a form of reaction to obscurantism. At the time, they had the meaning of an institutional statement, with the message that we would resist the absurdly imposed restrictions and would never let the university stop. Now, however, even though they are necessary, they are not enough and may even lose this strategic meaning. In short, they are no substitute for an even more determined fight.

It therefore seems that the time has come to open the debate openly and broadly, to address parliament and take to the streets, with all the pertinent resources for struggle, inside and outside the universities, in a strong and determined demonstration, in which we affirm to the whole of society and together with progressive forces the crystal clear message that we cannot accept the scrapping of public universities, that we will never be accomplices to such an absurdity.

Long live the federal education system! Long live Andifes!

*Joao Carlos Salles He is a professor at the Department of Philosophy at the Federal University of Bahia. Former rector of UFBA and former president of ANDIFES. Author, among other books, of Public university and democracy (boitempo). [https://amzn.to/4cRaTwT]

Note

[I] https://www.andifes.org.br/2025/05/14/nota-da-andifes-sobre-situacao-do-orcamento-das-universidades-federais/

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