Brazil’s landless workers fight for better schools in countryside

Celebrating their 30th anniversary, the Landless Workers’ Movement (“MST”) have been holding since Monday (Feb. 10) their 6th National Congress in Brasília. Among the issued addressed are MST’s present situation, new ways of fighting for land, and the struggle for agrarian reformation and social changes. Gathering over 15 thousand workers from 23 states and other 250 guests from abroad, the Movement is also debating the political role of settlements and the participation of women and young people in the movement.

On Wednesday (Feb. 12) MST members occupied for two hours the main hall of the Ministry of Education, before they handed to Minister José Henrique Paim a letter in which they appeal for more and better schools in the countryside, quality school transportation and food, as well as extracurricular activities, computer courses, swimming pools and sport courts.

However, one of the movement’s chief complaints concern shut-down schools in rural communities. Alessandro Mariano, one of the coordinators of the MST education department, said, “Over the last ten years, over 37 thousand schools were shut down, and the Ministry hasn’t done anything about it. The schools that are still open and school transportation are in precarious conditions. We need real educational policies for the countryside.”

In his answer, Minister Paim said that his commitment to landless workers “is one of on-going dialogue, in an effort to reduce inequalities between rural and urban education. We want you to have better conditions for education in rural areas.”

José Henrique Paim, education, countryside, MST, landless workers’ movement

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira