A student crosses a bridge to arrive to his school in Rio de Janeiro (Photo AP / Silvia Izquierdo)
Classes have been running in Luis Compositor Carlos da Vila school in Benfica, a working-class neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, since early April. Alongside swimming and dance classes and preparation for the ENEM (the general entrance exam for public universities), the timetable includes discussion circles to cover topics such as the militarisation of police in favelas. This is all happening despite the ongoing teachers’ strike across the state since March this year. Or perhaps because of it. Students are cleaning floors, painting walls and making food. They have taken over their school in support of their teachers, and in protest to spending cuts which have been part of the PT’s programme of austerity which has left funding for public services, wages and unemployment in freefall since last year.
Contrasting a historically combative teaching sector in Rio de Janeiro, and a university student movement with a long and complex history, the radicalisation of secondary school students is a first in Brazil. In late 2015 students took over more than 200 schools in the state of Sao Paulo. The occupations forced the suspension of a scheme to close nearly 100 public schools. In March 2016 occupations began in Rio growing to 82 occupied schools, and have recently spread to other states in the south and north-east. In Rio and Sao Paulo occupations forced out the state Secretary of Education. The brutality of police repression against school students in Sao Paulo last year has since prompted an investigation by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, whilst school occupations in Rio have faced multiple threats and attempts at de-occupation by the military police, and groups of students organised against the occupations. Students from across different schools in Rio recently occupied the building of the Secretary of Education, and were violently evicted a few days later.
