A assistência estudantil na garantia do direito do estudante à educação: o avanço neoliberal no Brasil como ameaça às políticas de permanência na educação superior na UFRN

Abstract

The present study is about student assistance as a guarantee of the student's right to education and the neoliberal increase in Brazil as a threat to this policy of the continuity in higher education, with emphasis on the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte. It aims to analyze the importance of student assistance, in neoliberal times, as a guarantee of the right to education and a strategy for students to stay at UFRN. As theoretical-methodological foundations, this study used Marx's dialectical historical materialism, chosen for proposing a historical and procedural analysis of the object, which enables a total view of reality. Furthermore, the study made use of bibliographic research and was anchored in authors who approach and discuss about education as a social right; higher education and the need for continuity; the neoliberal advance and the scrapping of Brazilian education and student assistance as a achievement of the right to education, especially at UFRN. Also, documental research was used, based on UFRN management reports, on laws and decrees, as well as on the Federal Constitution of 1988, with regard to education and student assistance. As a result, it was found that despite higher education being a right of citizenship, the current political situation in Brazil operates a process of scrapping federal public universities, through the contingency of funds and attempts to privatize education. Finally, from the data analyzed on student assistance at UFRN between 2017 and 2021, the importance of student assistance in the scenario of neoliberal advancement and imminence of the COVID-19 pandemic was remarkable, which acknowledges its consolidation as a student retention strategy in higher education.