Importance of affirmative action for social inclusion: the Uezo case

Abstract

Brazil presents great inequalities, where a smaller part of the population has a high percentage of the total income, while the largest percentage of the population constitutes the group with the lowest income. Regarding the racial aspect, more than 50% of the population is self-styled black. However, this proportion of black majority does not appear in schooling and income rates.

It is a current idea that to have a college degree is a way for a citizen to achieve social ascension, since, on average, a professional with a higher education level has a higher wage than another one who does not. In this sense, affirmative action policies that guarantee access to part of the classically marginalized population are an instrument of correction and social ascension.

Like gain of the work of social movements and representations of society, Affirmative Action policies have been materialize in laws in some states and municipalities. The current federal law for places reservations for public higher education is 12711 of 2012, while the latest in the State of Rio de Janeiro is 8121 of 2018. Through this state law, UEZO reserves to low-income candidates, 20% of candidates vacancies for blacks, indigenous people or “quilombolas”, 20% for those coming from public schools and 5% for the disabled and children of police officers or other similar persons, dead or incapacitated in the service. Today, UEZO has a student population formed mostly by self-declared blacks (51%).

Concerning the Pandemic present moment, UEZO carried out actions to ensure that its socially underprivileged students had access to net service, so that these students have not been exclude from the learning process during the current period of emergency online classes.