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 At the same time as they are announcing Brazil's achievement of oil self-sufficiency, the newspapers are also informing us that 27% of young Brazilians neither attend school nor work. We know that another 25% work instead of going to school, and that, of those who succeed in completing high school, the majority do this without receiving a satisfactory education. Less than 25% of Brazilians graduate from a high school with a minimum of quality.
While we utilize sophisticated technology to extract oil from the bottom of the ocean - thanks to the investments of Brazilian state oil company Petrobras that, this year, will amount to 35 billion reais (US$ 16.3 billion) - we are wasting the brain energy of each Brazilian, waiting only for a good school with a full-day schedule, with well-remunerated, well-prepared and motivated teachers, and with modern equipment. Thanks to self-sufficiency, Brazil will, in a few decades, have depleted its oil reserves while remaining unable to profit from the energy of its people. We are a country of self-sufficiency in what is difficult and provisional and of insufficiency in what would be easier and permanent. No Brazilian has received a Nobel Prize, and there is no indication this will happen in the next few decades in any of the areas of knowledge. Because many of those Brazilians who could receive the award, in the sciences or in literature, will die illiterate, without mastering mathematics, without acquiring the necessary tools to extract their potential intellectual energy. They are just like untapped oil wells. This lack of logic has an explanation. We invest a great deal in economic growth, but we do not care for the well-being of persons. In the last few years, we grew more than many other countries, but as a result we have an economy that is rich and a population that is poor. We have self-sufficiency in production and insufficiency in the quality of life. We need to change the logic we employ in our resource management. To understand that the objective of every social process is to take good care of people and that this can be accomplished if we use their potential. It is national suicide to have 27% of young people idle, not working, not studying. These young people not only spend their life without utilizing their potential, they also ultimately generate other expenses, like the violence, indigence, and need for government assistance that the majority will cause. A small investment would guarantee that they would attend school, learning a career that would almost automatically mean a job and stimulate the economy, reducing the unproductive expenses of inefficiency: the war against violence and the assistance to the poor. These current expenses stem from the omissions of the past. We are not investing in the young people, while at the same time we will invest the profits of the state industries into the production of more petroleum and electrical energy. But we scorn the energy of persons. Addicted to its imperfect, perverse logic, Brazil is abandoning its human resources and denying good care to its population. If we would change that logic, we would perceive that the solution to our problems is contained within the problems themselves, that the problem of idle young people can be solved by availing ourselves of their potential, if it is mobilized well. What works for the youth also works for unemployed adults: taking care of them, using their strength to produce what they need. This is the road to generating energy that is longer lasting, more efficient and more just, instead of the vain pursuit of a self-sufficiency that will last only as long as the time necessary to drain our oil reserves. Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is a PDT senator for the Federal District and was Governor of the Federal District (1995-98) and Minister of Education (2003-04). You can visit his homepage - www.cristovam.com.br - and write to him at
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. Translated from the Portuguese by Linda Jerome -
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As a presidential candidate, we thought you would be campaigning for your eventual election ! But it looks like you even have time to write articles on this site...apart from wheeling and dealing...with Caixas2, 3, 4 and 5 !
Your critics on education are very true ! So what did you do....while you were....Minister of Education ??????
And what did you do for education, while you were governor ?
It also looks like that campagning for becoming a brazilian president is not a full time job. Lets assume 4 hours per week !
Right ?
As to the lack of Brazilian Nobel prize, well you should listen and read to what his Highness Lula said : airplane is a brazilian invention ! Could be very well correct, with Santos Dumont, but he did not enjoy residing in Brazil, so he went to France to live and develop his invention. But sorry for Lula, if a foreigner residing in Brazil develops an invention it becomes a Brazilian invention ! So why then the opposite is not true, as per Lula, when a Brazilian residing outside Brazil, invents something in a foreign country ? Well, it looks like Lula has only half his brain working !
I dont know how many Saints, recognized by the Vatican, you have in Brazil !
What is sure is that Lula will definitely try to be cannonized, but being so smart, while stille alive. He will do everything to have his goal fulfilled...whatever the cost will be, because afterall it will not come from his own money but the government money !
Now Cristovam, time to go campaigning if you really desire to be the next President of Brazil !!!!!
Smile ! Cheers !