Note of support for the struggle of indigenous, quilombola, peasant and riverside communities for the right to quality education

The Postgraduate Program in Sociology and Anthropology (PPGSA) of the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) declares solidarity with the struggle of traditional, indigenous, quilombola, peasant and riverside communities of Pará for the full right to quality education and for the repeal of State Law No. 10.820/2024. It also declares support for the occupation of the Pará State Department of Education (SEDUC-PA) and the strike of workers in the state education system as a legitimate form of protest and extends support and solidarity to all professionals in the state education system who are being directly impacted by the changes brought about by the new law; especially to Sociology teachers, many of whom are graduates of this Program.

It is unacceptable that in such an emblematic year for Pará, which will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30), populations that are among the main actors in confronting socio-environmental devastation in the Amazon and the world, have their rights threatened. Our ancestral teachers, as well as workers in the state education system of Pará, are fighting for the repeal of Law 10.820/2024, which, in addition to carrying out a profound administrative and remuneration reform for education professionals, whose implementation deepens the devaluation of teaching work in the state, also dismantles the Modular Organization System for Indigenous Education (Somei) and the Modular Education System (Some), even replacing in-person teaching with educational models based on remote learning. In other words, without any dialogue or broad participation of civil society in the design of the State's public education policy, it directly attacks the right to education in indigenous, quilombola, peasant and riverside areas, threatening the provision of quality education, traditional education, the cultural preservation of communities and the full right to differentiated school education for these populations.

The dismantling of SOMEI and SOME is an attack on indigenous school education and on the populations that live in territories far from urban centers. Its dismantling comes in the wake of several structural changes in education violently approved by the state government without discussion with civil society and without any support that proves its effectiveness in guaranteeing the right to quality education, that is, that it will in fact contribute to the full exercise of the relationship between teaching and learning.

Public policies need to be informed by evidence and, since the tragic collective experience caused by the pandemic in recent years, there is already a robust framework of international and national studies, including those produced by UFPA and the PPGSA itself, which point to how remote teaching based on online interactions, instead of democratizing access to education, in Pará and in the Amazon more broadly, has contributed, on the contrary, to the deepening of educational inequalities and the precariousness of teaching work. In view of this, we join in supporting the demands of the indigenous, quilombola, peasant and riverside communities mobilized at the SEDUC headquarters in Belém, as well as the education professionals who have been mobilizing since 2024, to demand the immediate complete repeal of Law No. 10.820/2024 and the commitment of the State Government of Pará to guarantee quality public education based on broad dialogue with civil society, different groups and the University. Belem, January 24, 2025.