Federal military schools, state military, and militarized schools

Since the 2018 election campaign, which culminated with the arrival of the far-right to the federal government in 2019, “military schools” or “military doctrine in schools” has gained prominence in the national debate about the directions of education in the country, mainly, because these ideas for education are in line with the conservative and moralistic values of the current government.

It is worth noting that, in this process, the following have distinguished themselves in defense of a supposed “education with military principles”: politicians enthusiastic about this perspective, military personnel, and subjects linked to the bases of conservative political parties; on the other hand, educators, education workers in general, specialists in education, and academia have been dismissed from these discussions, or their positions have been ignored (^{Santos et al., 2019)}.

The enactment of ^{Decree n. 9.665 (2019)} and Decree n. 10. 004 (2019), which established, respectively, Secim and Pecim, followed by their dissemination by the federal government as a showcase of its policy for Brazilian education, could induce sectors of the population who are unaware of the processes of militarization of public schools that have been occurring in Brazil since the 1990s (according to data that will be presented in the next point) to think that this policy or even the promotion of a “military education” or an education guided by “military principles” is an unprecedented creation of the Bolsonaro government. Therefore, it is pertinent to point out here the differences between basic education military schools, militarized schools, schools that adhered to Pecim, and civic-military schools (which we understand as another type of militarization).

Creation of federal and state military schools

We consider military schools of basic education those created within the organizational chart of their respective military corporations, using, in general, funds allocated to defense (in the case of federal military schools) or public security (in the case of state military schools). According to the data gathered in our master’s research³, by December 2019, the following were accounted for: 15 federal military schools of basic education - being 14 military schools of the Military School System of Brazil (SCMB - in the original acronym), and the Osório Foundation (FO) - and 60 state military schools. In addition to these units, 18 private basic education military schools, managed by military associations, were also accounted.

In addition, we account the year 1889 as a significant temporal milestone of the institutionalized entry of the military in basic education. It was the year in which the Colégio Militar do Rio de Janeiro (then the federal capital) was founded and named, for some months, Imperial Colégio Militar. Initially, it intended to serve the children and dependents of military personnel victimized by the Paraguay War - initially, only male students were accepted (^{Alves & Nepomuceno, 2010}; ^{Diretoria de Educação Preparatória e Assistencial - [Depa], n. d.}; ^{Decreto n. 10.202, 1889}). The foundation of this school is also a historical landmark of the SCBM, because, from 1912 on, other units of military schools, with the same political-pedagogical proposal, began to be created in other capitals until the consolidation of a network of federal military schools of basic education, as we know today.

The 15 federal military schools in operation until December 2019 are supervised by the Directorate of Preparatory and Assistential Education (Depa - in the original acronym), subordinated to the Department of Education and Culture of the Army (Decex - in the original acronym). Although these schools are subject to the Brazilian Army’s organizational chart, they currently direct their vacancies preferentially to the children and dependents of officers of the three different Armed Forces (Army, Navy, and Air Force). The dependents of officers of the Armed Forces are compulsorily entitled to these vacancies, and in the case of vacancies not being filled by them, there is a selective process (tests) for the admission of civilian children. The welfare nature of federal military schools is emphasized in the texts made available on the Depa website as one of the reasons for the existence and operation of these school units (^{Portaria n. 9.006, 2018}).

Also, according to Depa, one of the missions of federal military schools is to offer education based on “military values” for children and dependents of officers of the Armed Forces who need a school whose political-pedagogical project is the same in its different units. By reason of, these students would need to transfer schools when their parents move cities to fulfill institutional missions of their respective corporations (Depa, n.d.). For example, if a parent - responsible for the student is an officer in one of the Armed Forces - is on a military mission in Manaus (AM) and is assigned to Rio de Janeiro (RJ), his child could be transferred from the Colégio Militar de Manaus to the Colégio Militar do Rio de Janeiro. In theory, this would bring less academic/school-related loss to the student.

The federal military schools of the SCMB, besides offering basic education (2nd cycle of basic education and high school), they also offer, during high school, professionalizing education integrated to basic education with a view to admission to the Armed Forces’ careers (Depa, n.d.; ^{Vianna, 2000)}.

On the other hand, the FO, founded in 1921 to attend daughters and dependents of military personnel (since until 1989, the SCMB’s military schools did not accept girls), despite also being based on military values and customs, offers propaedeutic education in the two cycles of elementary school and propaedeutic high school with integrated technical training in an area other than the military. It is worth noting that, although the FO is not linked to the SCMB’s organizational chart, it is also supervised by Depa and is guided by “military values” (^{Fundação Osório, 2020}).

According to ^{Castro (2016)}, this propaedeutic training integrated with vocational training with a view to military careers shows that in addition to serving a welfare mission, the political- -pedagogical project of these schools is based on the hermetic values of the Armed Forces and that one of the goals of training in these schools is to provide future officers for the Armed Forces with the least possible interference from sociocultural values external to the military quarters, thus maintaining an endogenous and static training in these corporations, “free”, therefore, of influences from the “civilian world”.

As mentioned, the insertion of the military in basic education through the creation of schools within the organizational chart of their respective corporations was not restricted to the Armed Forces. According to the survey and cross-referencing of information and academic research conducted in this paper, the first state military school was created in 1949 in Belo Horizonte, subordinated to the organizational chart of the Military Police of Minas Gerais (^{PMMG, 2018}; ^{Lei n. 480, 1949}).

In the 1940s and 1950s, driven by the consolidation and expansion of the army’s military schools, some military police forces demanded the construction of public military schools run by the corporations, with vacancies for the children and dependents of military police officers, as already occurred with the dependents of officers of the Armed Forces (^{Jesus, 2011}; ^{PMMG, 2018}; ^{Lei n. 480, 1949}; ^{Polícia Militar do Paraná, 2019)}.

According to ^{Castro (2016)} and ^{Vicentini (2014)}, the Armed Forces and the military police corporations keep in common moral conceptions, traditions, and political values; moreover, these corporations are closed and constantly seek ways to keep themselves free from the “negative influences of the civilian world”. Regarding these characteristics, we verified in the documents surveyed the desire of military police corporations to build basic education schools that would encourage or even prepare the children and dependents of military police officers to follow the same career as their progenitors. For this reason, we understand that the institution of military schools for basic education - built, maintained, and funded by the corporations - in addition to meeting the welfare claims of their members, also meets an understanding of these troops that it is necessary to keep their members and families free from the influences of the civilian world. Therefore, by following the example of the path followed by the Armed Forces, they seek to maintain a hermetic education of potential future members of these troops.

Besides the military police, guided by similar yearnings and with similar political motivations, some military firefighting corporations also created their organizational charts for basic education schools of the late 1990s (^{Colégio Militar do Corpo de Bombeiros [CMCB], 2017}; ^{Lei n. 2.393, 1999}; ^{Lei n. 4.133, 2003}). In general, we see that the process of creation, consolidation, and expansion of federal military schools, linked to the army, and state schools, linked to military police or military fire departments, has advanced over the years.

Regarding federal military schools, this research recorded, that by December 2019, 13 SCMB military schools’ units in operation were distributed in different municipalities, 11 of them being capital cities (Depa, n.d.). In addition to the military schools, there is also the FO in the city of Rio de Janeiro (^{Fundação Osório, 2020}).

The creation and operation of 60 state military schools of basic education were also registered, 56 of which belong to the military police of different federal units and four to military fire departments.

Military police schools are divided as follows: 30 schools in Minas Gerais (^{PMMG, 2018}; ^{Lei n. 480, 1949}); seven in Rio Grande do Sul (^{Sauer, 2017)}; four in Santa Catarina (^{Colégio Policial Militar Feliciano Nunes Pires, 2015)}; three in Rio de Janeiro (^{Lei n. 3.751, 2002}); the states of Alagoas (^{Carvalho, 2016)}, Bahia (^{Jesus, 2011)}, Ceará (^{Decreto n. 31.869, 2015}), and Paraná (^{Polícia Militar do Paraná, 2019)} have two in each federative unit; Brasília (^{Decreto n. 37.321, 2016}), Paraíba (^{Lei n. 9.492, 2011}), Pernambuco (^{Lei n. 1.210, 1966}), and Roraima (^{Colégio Militar Estadual de Roraima [CME-PMRR], 2020}) have one school in each state.

The four military fire department schools are in the following municipalities and cities: Brasília (^{Lei n. 2.393, 1999}), Fortaleza (CMCB, 2017), Miguel Pereira, and Volta Redonda (^{Lei n. 4.133, 2003}).

The documentation survey that we conducted in this research revealed that these state police and fire department basic education school units have diverse characteristics, specificities in their creation histories, and are organized administratively in different ways; we also observed different forms of financing.

Through the documents analyzed in this research, the state military schools were categorized into two large groups according to their similar characteristics. On one side, the PMMG, PMSC, PMBA, PMPR, and PMDF state military schools, in which is observed a more evident policy of constituting military schools aimed at the endogenous formation of troops and the promotion of assistance policies to the military, through resources destined to public security.

In the second group are the state military schools of the PMPE, the Military Brigade of Rio Grande do Sul (BMRS), the PMPB, the PMAL, the PMCE, the CBMCE, the PMRJ, the CBMRJ, and the PMRR, whose objectives related to the endogenous training of troops and assistance policies are somewhat more obscured. In addition, the administrative ties between these schools and the respective corporations and their financing through public security funds are not very evident since these schools - despite being part of the administrative organization chart of the respective corporations - have been established over the years and/or still establish partnerships with education departments for the use of public buildings and/or human resources.

On the other hand, federal military schools present more homogeneous characteristics among themselves, and no administrative ties or financial dependence on the Ministry of Education were found in the documents analyzed. We understand that this is since federal military schools have a more centralized structure and can count on more public resources.

It is known that military corporations are institutions that have not developed - nor do they tend to develop - knowledge, skills, practices, and theoretical formulations related to the field of education in the strict sense, especially when it comes to basic education since their purpose is different from education and the actions and daily activities of corporations are focused on their core activities. For this reason, it is observed that these schools tend to demand from the education secretariats human resources (education professionals) and even physical structures, such as buildings, for the installation of their schools. In the case of state corporations in federal units where public resources are more disputed, there will be pressure for corporations not to use security funds for military schools of basic education.

Militarization of state and municipal public schools

According to the data analyzed in this research, in 1990 there were 14 PMMG schools, 10 federal military schools of basic education, and PMBA, PMPR, PMPE, BMRS, and PMSC with one school each. We understand that this context encouraged the corporations that did not yet have basic education schools in their organizational charts to articulate policies aiming at the creation of schools in their organizational charts. It also encouraged the members of these troops to demand this type of school for their children and dependents. It is worth noting that the members of the six military police corporations that at that time had public military schools, with places specifically for their children and dependents, enjoyed a privilege since their children and dependents could access public schools that stood out concerning civilian public schools, since they were more closed to the civilian world (something important to the military culture), had specific funding (with public security funds), and, therefore, had the privileged infrastructure and operating conditions.

In this scenario, the Military Police State Elementary School “Tiradentes” was created in Cuiabá in 1986, currently: Military Police State School “Tiradentes”⁴ (^{Decreto n. 2.364, 1986}; ^{Decreto n. 3.107, 1991}). We understand that the name given to the unit reveals the intention of creating a state military school, as had been happening in other states since 1949.

However, such policy did not materialize because, according to the official documents reviewed, the unit was created with funds from the education portfolio, inserted in the organizational chart of this secretariat, without ever having had any formalized relationship with the PMMT. In addition, in the documents analyzed we did not find policies to reserve vacancies for children and dependents of military personnel, which indicates that the unit functioned like other schools in the Mato Grosso state network. According to the history of the school unit, available on the teaching section of PMMT’s official website, when the school was founded, “nothing identified it with the Military Police, since it worked as a normal public school and was directed by civilians without any connection with the Military Police. For 03 (three) years, the School functioned this way” (^{Polícia Militar de Mato Grosso, 2020)}.

The documents surveyed indicate that, on June 13, 1990, the Mato Grosso state government promulgated a decree transforming the Tiradentes Elementary School into the Tiradentes Military Police Preparatory School for Elementary and Secondary Schools. The administrative act also determines that the “Military Police will be responsible for the placement of teaching and administrative personnel, through an agreement with the Secretariat of Education and Culture, and of the necessary resources for the operation of primary and secondary education, in the terms of the legislation pertaining to the corporation” (^{Decreto n. 2.650, 1990}, p. 1, our emphasis).

In line with the decree enacted in 1990, the following year, Decree n. 3,107, dated January 18, 1991, is enacted, determining that

Article 1 - The Military Police State School of 1st Grade “Tiradentes”, created by ^{Decree n. 2.364 of 22/12/86}, is deactivated and extinguished due to the new name and change of administrative subordination, contained in Decree n. 2. 650 of 06/13/90, being governed by a military regime, and consequently specific legislation, based on Article 66 of Law n. 5.692, of 03/11/71, which establishes the guidelines and bases for teaching 1st and 2nd grades. (^{Decreto n. 3.107, 1991}, p. 1, our emphasis , own translation).

We understand the transformation of this state school - which served students from the general public, built with education funds, located in the organization chart of the state education secretariat - into a “military police” school, submitted to a “military regime”, as a policy diverging from that of construction or creation of military schools. When we cross-reference the data gathered in this research, we can also affirm that the process experienced by this school in Cuiabá constitutes the first militarization of a public school that we have been able to register.

Throughout the 1990s, other federal units also militarized their first public schools. The official documents cataloged in this research, when using expressions such as “creation,” indicate that these processes were marked by an attempt by state governments to make it seem that the militarization of state schools in full operation corresponded to the creation of military schools along the lines of the policies carried out in Bahia, Paraná, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and especially Minas Gerais. Therefore, the militarization of public schools, at least in the 1990s, was a precarious way that some state governments found to offer “military schools” to state corporations that did not yet have “differentiated” schools for their children and dependents. This observation is not to rule out other possible political and ideological objectives that may have driven the militarization of public schools.

According to the data presented in the next topic, the militarization of public schools gained momentum in the country after the 2000s and, in 2018, it is no longer a policy that affects only state networks but is still applied to municipal schools.

Until 2019, the terms “military school,” “military police school,” “military fire department school,” and “Tiradentes school” appeared in the debates as recurrent names to refer to both authentically military schools and militarized schools. That year, another term appeared in the debates on the thematic: “civic-military schools.

Considering the precepts of Decree n. 10,004, dated September 5, 2019, which “Establishes the National Program of Civic-Military Schools,” these schools would be the state’s and/or municipal’s public schools administered and maintained by their respective secretariats of education that adhere to the federal government’s program to encourage the “creation of civic-military schools” (p. 1).

It is not, therefore, about the “creation” of more military schools (according to the project’s government propaganda) but about a program that aims to give even more body and capillarity to a process of militarization of public schools that has already been carried out by state governments for three decades (with more significant growth since 2012) and by municipalities for some years. This time, however, as a way of registering their adherence to the federal government’s program, these schools would change their name to “civic-military schools”.

Different configurations of the militarization of public schools in Brazil

The documents analyzed indicate that the militarization of public schools in Brazil has followed different paths in each federative unit. Therefore, we can speak of different configurations of militarization of public schools. Although we live in a country under the same broader legal system, each federative unit can develop specific laws, but state and municipal laws cannot clash with the federal legal system. We understand that the various forms of militarization are due precisely to the fact that each of the federated entities seeks specific ways to circumvent the national legal norms for education since this policy disrespects the legal precepts for public education defined by Article 205 of the 1988 Federal Constitution and by the 1996 Law of Directives and Bases for Education (LDB), especially concerning gratuity, democratic management, professionals qualified to act in the educational field, freedom to learn and teach, and equal access and permanence of students.

Hence, we will not delve into the specifics of militarization processes in each municipality and/or federal unit. It is worth, however, according to the objectives of this text, pointing out some possible generalizations.

First, if state schools officially baptized as “military” or “Tiradentes” can be the result of policies of creation/implementation of authentically military schools or militarization of civilian public schools, on the other hand, municipal schools under military guardianship are all the result of the militarization of civilian public schools in full operation. That said, it is now worth listing some common features concerning militarization configurations.

Considering the research sources cataloged, in relation to militarized state schools, we identified that:

By December 2019, there were 240 militarized public schools in operation in Brazil, distributed in 14 federative units. Of these, 155 (65.58%) are state ones⁶ and 85 (35.42%) are municipal.

Of the 155 militarized state schools, 128 (82.58%) underwent this intervention through administrative arrangements with the respective PMs, nine (5.81%) through the CBM, and 18 (11.81%) from Roraima via an administrative arrangement with the Voluntary Corps of Inactive Military Police and Firemen (CVPBMI). It is worth noting that Roraima has created a military corps that receives both firefighters and police officers, who are away from their duties for various reasons, to work in militarized state schools. Table 1 presents this data side by side so that one can visualize, on a national level, the involvement of each corporation in these processes.

Concerning the 85 municipal schools, 71 (83.53%) were militarized through the Military Police of the respective federative unit, seven (8.24%) through agreements with the CBM, and seven (8.24%) from Goiás through partnerships with the private sector. Table 2 presents this data side by side for better visualization.

When we analyze the set of 240 militarized public schools, we have 79 (32.92%) in Bahia, 67 (27.92%) in Goiás, 18 (7.5%) in Roraima, 14 (5.83%) in Maranhão, 13 (5.42%) in Amazonas, 12 (5%) in Tocantins, 10 (4.17%) in the Federal District, 8 (3.33%) in Mato Grosso, 7 (2.92%) in Rondônia, 3 (1.25%) in Acre, 3 (1.25%) in Amapá, 3 (1.25%) in Paraná, two (0.83%) in Pará, and one (0.42%) in Piauí.

By looking at the data according to the five geographical regions, we note that, of all the militarized public schools, 94 (39.17%) are in the Northeast, 85 (35.42%) in the Center-West, 58 (24.17%) in the North, and 3 (1.25%) in the South. We did not register militarized public schools in any state in the Southeast region. In the South, we only registered schools of this type in Paraná.

Final considerations: in dialogue with the data

All the data set out in this text are a snapshot of this situation in December 2019. However, in other periods, the picture was different. To follow the evolution of these numbers over the years, a more detailed exposition of the data would be necessary, with the cycles and periods of militarization of these schools as the axis for writing. Despite having this data available, we chose not to present it in this article due to space limitations and the choice of delimitation that needed to be made. In any case, considering the beginning of the implementation of Pecim and the fact that the data do not show any process of demilitarization of public schools, we observe a trend of continuity and expansion of this policy, which encourages us to continue cataloging and monitoring the data on the subject and writing about the phenomenon of militarization of education in Brazil.

By way of conclusions, the data gathered so far show a preponderance of militarized schools in the Northeast, Midwest, and North regions and a tendency for these schools to prevail in inland municipalities. However, more research would be needed to understand this in more detail and depth, for example, analyzing whether it is possible to observe a trend toward militarization of schools in poorer neighborhoods or whether these schools serve strata of the middle classes in these regions.

In any case, although different federal units adopted different paths to militarization, the analysis of the data allows us to affirm that the first militarized public schools were the result of a precarious policy of “creating” military schools. The documents analyzed indicate that faced with the demand from particular sectors of society (especially the military) for the installation of these schools in some federal units, the “low budget cost” solution found by the executive powers was to militarize civilian public schools. It is interesting to note that such “solution” was not adopted in the South, Southeast, and Northeast where there are military schools for basic education. This data reinforces our conclusion that the demand for more military schools in federal units with smaller public budgets initially drove the militarization of public civilian schools.

However, when analyzing the processes of expansion, we find that, in a second moment, the demand for the creation of new military schools ceases to be a significant element in the continued militarization of public schools. The more massive militarization of school units beginning in 2012 and the consequent offer of places in militarized schools to the public no longer restricted to the children and dependents of military personnel show that the militarization policy began to be driven by other demands.

In this second moment of militarization expansion, the defense of an endogenous education in military circles as a justification for the creation of military schools loses strength since the massive militarization goes beyond a public connected to the military headquarters and enters civil society in an increasingly massive way. The massive militarization of state units, the militarization of municipal schools, and partnerships with the private sector for the militarization of public schools reinforce this conclusion.

Based on the data from the documents used to characterize the different configurations of militarization and following the different contexts of the expansion of this process, we identified that the expansion of militarization was driven by two complementary demands: 1) militarization as electoral currency, aiming to please particular conservative sectors in visible growth in the country; 2) militarization as a policy of repression and social control, given the gradual growth of social movements (especially the student movement) from mid-2010, peaking in 2013. It is also worth noting that the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and the complex political-economic scenario of that moment highlighted in the public scene ultraconservative and extreme right-wing political tendencies while igniting the warning for the possibility of larger social uprisings than those of 2013.

Thus, given the numerous research clippings that the theme offers, we understand that the militarization of public schools should also be the object of research by other fields of knowledge since it is a public policy linked to political-ideological interests that are consistent with the strengthening of the extreme right in the country and the growing role of the military in various areas of society. It is important to point out that the role of the military in education is incompatible with the institutional role determined by the 1989 Constitution for the military police, the Armed Forces, and the military fire departments, since the Constitution assigns to the Armed Forces the role of acting in national defense, to the military police in public security, and the military fire departments the role of civil defense.

Finally, we understand that militarization subverts the principles and purposes of the school by prohibiting the plurality of ideas, democratic management, the autonomy of schools and education professionals, the possibility of learning, among other aspects, clashing in this way also with the precepts established by the set of laws that regulate basic education in Brazil. Therefore, the picture presented in this article demands attention from educational researchers, school professionals, students, and all sectors of society committed to free, quality, and socially referenced public education.