FROM INVISIBILITY TO TRANSPARENCY: SPENDING ON STUDENT SUPPORT IN TIMES OF FISCAL AUSTERITY AND POLITICAL CONSERVATISM
Name: TALITA PRADA
Publication date: 22/06/2022
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| MARIA LUCIA TEIXEIRA GARCIA | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| CASSIANE COMINOTI ABREU | External Examiner * |
| JEANE ANDRÉIA FERRAZ SILVA | Internal Examiner * |
| MARIA DAS GRAÇAS CUNHA GOMES | Internal Examiner * |
| MARIA LUCIA TEIXEIRA GARCIA | Advisor * |
Summary: The objective of the thesis is to analyze the federal funding of the National Student Assistance Program of the Federal Network of Professional, Scientific and Technological Education between 2010 and 2020 in order to verify the financial inflection in the planning and execution of the program after the Brazilian economic and political crisis of 2015, evidencing the Student Support model made possible with such funding. We carried out mixed-method research involving 41 institutions of the Network, having as empirical corpus the pluriannual plans, the budget guideline laws, the annual budget laws, the news of the National Council of Professional, Scientific and Technological Education Institutions, the student profile documents, institutional
regulations for student support, and the financial execution data from the Panel on the Federal Budget and Brazilian Transparency. In qualitative terms, we used thematic content analysis. For the quantitative data, we performed trend evolution analysis of the budgeted and executed resources, with a focus on payments, in the search for inflection points for the analysis of their causes. We use social policy, public fund and financing as theoretical categories. Our results show how the policy of budget cuts impacted the budget execution of the National Student Assistance Program, with a tendency to increase spending on elements of expenses that are not considered student support. This trend emerges from 2017 onwards, while student assistance expenses remained stable and there was a reduction in resources, growth in demand and an increase in the number of enrollments. Regarding the resources executed, they
were mainly spent on direct student support through cash transfers. The cuts in resources varied according to the different areas of institutional financing and the program, during the period, suffered the smallest percentage cuts, when compared to the other areas, not being related to the regional location of the institutions. The underfunding of the program and its definancing after the approval of Constitutional Amendment 95, in addition to accentuating the characteristics of a selective program focused on money transfer, made the regulations themselves stop including part of the student population. In addition, the meritocratic ideology has contributed to the questioning of the legitimacy of student assistance both institutionally and by the control bodies. Finally, the pandemic, despite bringing changes in the organization of student assistance policies, did not change the federal government`s policy of budget
cuts nor the framework of misuse of program resources. In conclusion, we highlight that the intensification of austerity as an economic policy and the lack of funding for educational policies reverberated on the program, making the implementation of Student Assistance as a right unfeasible, following the trend of being increasingly restricted and selective, making it difficult to fulfil the proposed objectives for permanence and intensifying the misuse of its resources to cover institutional demands. In addition to insufficient funding, the conservative and meritocratic ideology has limited the social control of the responsible bodies and made it difficult for the student community, making the legitimacy of student support unfeasible, and limiting its conception and scope.
