Students who use their score from the National High School Exam (Enem) to study degrees will be able to receive monthly scholarships of more than R$500. The measure is part of the Nest Egg for Degrees which will be officially announced this month. The intention is for the scholarship to start being paid in 2025. The information was anticipated, this Friday (1st), by the Minister of Education, Camilo Santana.
According to Santana, students will be selected for the program based on their Enem score. The idea, according to the minister, is to attract good students so that they can become future teachers in Brazilian schools. “We want good students to be able to complete their degree, there is a lack of mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology teachers,” he said.
The minister has not yet disclosed the exact value of the benefit, but explained that, as well as the Nest egg for high schoolstudents will receive resources that will be retained in a savings account, which they will be able to access when they complete their training.
“It will be presented this year, starting next year, because we want to see if we can use Enem now. We already want the Enem student to know that he will receive a scholarship if he chooses the degree. He will now enter university with a scholarship paid for by the government. It’s a way to stimulate. In addition to a scholarship, he will have savings”, said the minister.
More teachers
The Nest Egg for Degrees is part of a set of government actions to value Brazilian basic education teachers.
Santana also intends to create incentives for teachers who are already in the classroom. The ministry intends to create Mais Professores, inspired by the Mais Médicos program, which offers incentives to doctors to work in places where there is a greater demand for health professionals and little assistance.
“[Programa no qual] the teacher can receive an extra bonus in his salary, so he can go to that school, to that city that doesn’t have a teacher, like Mais Médico. The federal government pays him to go to a city that doesn’t have a doctor. So it’s more or less logical”, said the minister.
According to Santana, it is necessary to value the teaching profession in the country. “There are countries that recognize it as the main profession, in Brazil people are no longer wanting to be teachers, not only for reasons of remuneration, but for lack of recognition, of appreciation. The idea here too is to create a culture in this country in which people recognize the role of the teacher, especially because we have all been there since we were children”, he argued.
Research shows that, due to lack of interest, the country is at risk of a shortage of teachers, especially in schools. Data from the Union of Entities Maintaining Higher Education Establishments in the State of São Paulo (Semesp) show that, by 2040, Brazil could have a shortage of 235 thousand teachers of basic education.
Budget
The announced actions will depend, however, on budget availability. Regarding the number of scholarships that will be offered by the Pe-de-Meia das Licenciaturas, the executive secretary of the MEC, Leonardo Barchini, said, in an interview this week, that the number of scholarships will depend on how much is available in the department’s budget for next year.
In a moment of review of mandatory federal government spendingthe minister guaranteed, this Friday, that “no policy and program that is underway will be affected due to any measure by the federal government”.
*The reporter traveled at the invitation of the Ministry of Education
