The PT candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said today (21) that he intends to expand the number of federal universities in the country. “It is necessary that we continue to create more universities so that more Brazilians can study, improve and have a profession,” he said, speaking at a campaign event in Teófilo Otoni, Minas Gerais. 
For Lula, the qualification of the workforce will allow Brazil to position itself even better in international markets. “When that happens, we won’t just export soy, corn and iron ore, we’ll export the thing that has the most added value, which is the Brazilian people’s intelligence and knowledge,” he added.
The candidate also promised to build a university hospital in the region. “So that medical students can improve themselves,” he emphasized.
Later, when speaking to the press in Juiz de Fora, also in Minas Gerais, Lula returned to the topic of education. “We are going to come back very strongly to Fies and to Prouni”, she said in reference to the student financing policies for higher education adopted in previous PT governments.
According to the former president, these policies, together with the adoption of racial and social quotas, allowed the university student body to get closer to the Brazilian reality. “The quality has changed and the color of the Brazilian university has changed, it is for everyone now. It shows the face of the Brazilian people, it’s a mixture”, he highlighted, recalling that before these policies, higher education served mostly the richest strata of the population. “The university used to be a university for white people, you rarely found a black boy at the university”.
Lula also said that he intends to work in basic education with values that contribute to the fight against racism. “We are going to reiterate the study of African history in our Brazil,” she said.
In addition, the candidate said that if elected, he will put into practice one of the proposals of senator Simone Tebet (MDB), who ran for president in the first round of elections and is now a supporter of Lula. “Doing high school also integral and professional. People have to learn a trade. Because if people are working and want to study, they can support themselves much more easily,” she said.
Brazil aid
Lula said that he intends to maintain the payment of Auxílio Brasil for low-income families in an eventual government. “As long as the people are in need and hunger, we will continue,” she emphasized. However, he would like the program to be restructured along the lines of the old Bolsa Família, based on a more consistent register and with a counterpart from the beneficiaries. “We had conditions for people, we had to send their children to school, children had to be vaccinated. It was a program that gave responsibility to society,” he compared.
