A trajetória da assistência estudantil no processo de reestruturação e expansão das universidades federais: a implementação do Programa Nacional de Assistência Estudantil na Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora no período de 2007 a 2017

Abstract

The present study sought to investigate the organization of Student Assistance at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), starting from the framework of the formalization of the PNAES-Ordinance No. 39/2007- and, later, the Presidential Decree No. 7.234/2010. Taking up the Student Assistance trajectory, it has been observed that it has evolved very slowly since its beginning in the 1930s. With the process of university expansion and restructuring of the 2000s, the offer of student assistance has gained space and a regulation that have formalized its budget allocation. The formalization of the Student Assistance had a certain functional character for the success of university expansion. This utility, contradictorily, made room to the approval of the national program, living up to a historic fight for Student Assistance. Thus, both REUNI and PNAES go towards two contradictory projects, that of the hegemonic class and that of the working class. Considering that the essence of the Government is its maintenance of the domination condition of the hegemonic class, it will create mechanisms to maintain legitimacy around the existing order, which requires making concessions to the working class. For that, it uses bureaucratic rationalization, which is also an instrument of domination, but which will provide certain elements that can democratize access to rights, such as the condition of impersonality and publicity. The argumentation here is based on the thesis of Souza Filho and Gurgel (2016), who showed that in the current order - bureaucratic rationalization - plays an important role in the deepening of rights when exercised in the use of the relative autonomy of public administration. Management is a dimension of social intervention that can be directed to democratic ends and, in the field of class struggle, it can use its resources in order to incline to the project of the working class. Student Assistance is placed here in this field of contradictions and, therefore, of possibilities. Thus, UFJF appears to be a bureaucratic organization that has promoted the democratization of rights and makes an effort to use its human and financial resources due to its broad understanding of student assistance policies. However, it lacks the necessary constancy regarding the critical reflection that policies requires.