Did you know there is a Bill (PL 3035/2020) moving through the Chamber of Deputies that opens the door to clinical intervention in schools, to charging families for supports that schools must provide to students with disabilities, and to requiring a medical report to guarantee educational support? Well, we didn’t know either.
The Bill is being processed under urgency rules and proposes changing the national inclusive education policy without any debate or participation from society. This, in itself, violates the rights of people with disabilities, under article 4 of Decree 6969 – “nothing about us without us”.
The measures proposed by the Bill are also unconstitutional. It was originally proposed by Alexandre Frota, is reported by federal deputy Duarte Júnior, and has contributions from deputy Tabata Amaral.
Why the rush to approve the Bill?
They claim that Brazilian schools lack the conditions to truly include students with disabilities. However, we do not see that same willingness and sense of urgency to enforce and monitor investments in programs that restore the National Policy on Inclusive Education, which has been dismantled since 2016. We have robust legislation; that is not the weakness of school inclusion in Brazil. The weakness is the lack of investment, structural ableism, opportunism and the market logic that treats disability as a commodity.
That is why our manifesto calls for the Bill to be shelved and for the resumption of investments and programs that make the National Policy on Special Education from the perspective of Inclusive Education a reality in every school in this country. No change to the hard-won rights of people with disabilities will be accepted without our participation.
#NoToPL3035 #EducationIsNotACommodity
