President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) decided to veto a bill approved by Congress this month of July, which was reported in the Senate by former Education Minister Camilo Santana (PT-CE).
The bill would have transformed two professional education centers (Cefets) in Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro into technological universities. The veto is expected to be published this Friday (31) in the Official Gazette, and the government intends to submit a new text to address the matter.
The argument for the veto is that an operation of this kind generates new positions and costs, and the initiative should come from the Executive branch. The approved bill was introduced in 2023 by federal congressman Patrus Ananias (PT-MG), the PT candidate to run for governor of Minas Gerais.
The current MEC administration, led by Leonardo Barchini, brought to the Planalto the understanding that the approved bill was inadequate for several reasons, according to information obtained by Folha. These included the setting of a precedent for the creation of universities at the initiative of legislators, the risk of weakening the federal institute network, the risk of reducing the supply of technical secondary education at these institutions, and the creation of new positions.
"The Constitution is clear, and states that the transformation of autarchies, positions, and structures of the Executive branch is the exclusive prerogative of the President of the Republic. Had the government chosen to sign the bill into law, the legal nature of the new universities could have been challenged in court, creating a scenario of extreme legal uncertainty that would harm the education and functioning of these institutions," Barchini told Folha.
"To resolve this procedural defect, the government decided to submit a bill that transforms these Cefets into Federal Universities. In line with the correct initiative of former Minister Camilo Santana to permanently transform these structures into federal universities with legal certainty."
Barchini was the second-in-command at the MEC during Camilo's tenure, and assumed the role of minister when the PT member left the portfolio in April.
Despite all these factors being known before the bill advanced through Congress, Camilo embraced the initiative and secured its swift approval. He had reportedly commissioned the ministry's technical team, while serving as minister, to draft a bill along these lines, but the request was never fulfilled.
The decision to issue the veto, however, was negotiated and agreed upon between the government and the former minister.
The approved bill stipulated that Cefet-MG (Federal Center for Technological Education of Minas) would be transformed into the Federal Technological University of Minas Gerais, and Cefet-RJ (Federal Center for Technological Education Celso Suckow da Fonseca) into the Federal Technological University of Rio de Janeiro.
The Cefets are part of the federal institute network, created in 2008 during Lula's second presidential term. They offer technical secondary education and higher education courses, both bachelor's degrees and technology programs (of shorter duration).
However, when this network of federal technical and vocational education institutes was created, the Cefets in Minas and Rio decided to maintain their existing institutional format. Within these schools, there have always been plans to become technological universities, following the example of what happened with the unit in Paraná, which was transformed in 2005 into UTFPR (Federal Technological University of Paraná).
UTFPR offers undergraduate and graduate programs, but has virtually no technical high school integrated with secondary education. This characteristic was also taken into account in the arguments made within the MEC to veto the project.
The new bill on the subject will still go through different areas of the government. The expectation, according to accounts given to reporters, is that the text will hardly be ready before six months.
