Who is Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez, Bolsonaro's Minister of Education

The president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, announced via twitter, the nomination of the Colombian Ricardo Velez Rodriguez, for the charge of education Minister. Author of more than 30 works, he is currently an emeritus professor at the Army Command and General Staff School.

“Velez is a Philosophy professor, Master in Brazilian Thought from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Doctor in Luso-Brazilian Thought from the Gama Filho University and a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Political Research Raymond Aron, in Paris, with extensive teaching and management experience,” said the president-elect of the social network. The new minister would have already naturalized Brazilian.

In a blog, the future minister records his ideas about the Ministry of Education. During his administration, he promises “More Brazil, less Brasília”, the president-elect's motto, with an emphasis on municipal education. “I bet, for the MEC, on a policy that resumes the healthy proposals of the educators of the

Anísio Teixeira, who saw the basic and fundamental education system as a service to be offered by municipalities, which would, little by little, formulate the laws that would make teaching functions feasible”, he said. In the text, he informs that one of those who supported his nomination was the “professor and friend Olaf de Carvalho.”

He also criticizes the tests of the National High School Examination (Enem), formulated by Inep. According to him, the tests are complicated and function as “instruments of ideologization rather than means of wise to gain the training of young people in the education system” – same position of the president elected.

According to his CV, published by the universities where he taught, Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez was born in Bogotá, is 75 years old, and graduated in Philosophy and Theology. He came to Brazil to do postgraduate studies in the 1970s, always in the area of ​​Philosophy, obtaining a master's degree and later a doctorate at universities in Rio de Janeiro. Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez is the author of several books, having dedicated his career to university teaching and research.

He became Pro-Rector of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Medellín, between 1975 and 1978, when he briefly returned to Colombia. Since 1979, he has taken up residence in Brazil and taught at universities in Rio de Janeiro, Londrina and Juiz de Fora, having participated in the creation of postgraduate courses in Political Thought Brazilian.

In some of his most recent works, Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez examines the problem of patrimonialism and violence in Latin American societies. In the book Da Guerra à Pacificação, the hypothesis that the author raises is the following: “when, during the second half of the 20th century, the Patrimonialism was linked, in Latin American countries, to the drug market and to the radical action of the Forum of São Paulo, violence took off and gave rise to the formation of States within the State, whose most striking manifestation was the Republic of the FARC, between 1998 and 2002.”

He considers that “the Colombian model of narco-guerrilla warfare is not far from Brazil: this is witnessed by the fact that Fernandinho Beira Mar was the link between the FARC and drug trafficking in Rio de Janeiro.”

According to the synopsis of another title he authored – A Grande Lie – Lula e O Patrimonialismo Petista –, from 2015, professor and political scientist Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez “rescues the roots of the current mismanagement operating in the country: patrimonialism, a deep-rooted tradition of national politics, Bolivarian neo-populism and its relationship with lulopetismo, and, as a background of the political action of the Workers' Party, the strategies linked to the “gramscian cultural revolution”.

names

Since yesterday (21), there were expectations about the announcement for the minister of the portfolio. This Wednesday, one of the names aired was Mozart Neves, director of the Ayrton Senna Institute. However, the educator denied the invitation in a note and Bolsonaro reported via social network that the name for the folder command was undefined. This morning, the president-elect said that the name of the attorney general of the 1st Region, Guilherme Schelb, who supports projects such as Escola sem Partido, was under analysis. The two met at Granja do Torto and Schelb left the place saying that he was not invited to occupy the position.

During this Thursday, Bolsonaro reiterated that the school must be destined to teach disciplines and what themes relating to gender issues should be addressed by the family. "Daddy and Mom teach sex to children", stated. “School is a place to learn physics, mathematics, chemistry and to ensure that in the future we have a good employee, a good boss and a good liberal. That is the aim of education.”

When mentioning the relevance of the Ministry of Education, Bolsonaro highlighted that it is “where the future of the country lies”. “It is a very important ministry [Education] because the future of Brazil passes through there. A complicated situation over there, because in recent decades more has been spent on education and quality has dropped. So it is a ministry that has to be very well chosen.” The information is from Agência Brasil.