A questão agrária e o fechamento da escola do campo no Assentamento Mandacaru (Sumé – PB): relatos de diferentes sujeitos envolvidos no processo.

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of school closures in rural areas, highlighting the impact of the agrarian question on this process. The study's general objective is to analyze the impact of the closure of a rural school in the former Fazenda Feijão, now the Mandacaru Settlement, located in the municipality of Sumé, in the Cariri region of Paraiba, and its relationship with the agrarian question in this territory. As specific objectives, we sought to: investigate the agrarian question in Brazil and Paraíba; identify how the Feijão Farm latifundia developed in the Cariri region of Paraíba; investigate the history of the creation of the school on the Feijão Farm and its development; analyze the tensions and conflicts present in the process of closing the "Senador Paulo Guerra" Municipal School; and analyze the impacts of the school's closure on students and the community. This research was based on the theoretical-methodological approach of historical and dialectical materialism (MARX; ENGELS, 2007), from which we studied the historical process of the formation of the latifundia in question, the role of the school in the community and the impacts of its closure over the last five years. The research procedures included bibliographical and documentary research, field visits to the community and semi-structured interviews (GUAZI, 2021) with residents, teachers, mothers and local leaders. Our main findings are that the closure of the rural school in the Mandacaru settlement was an arbitrary and authoritarian act, which disrespected the rights and demands of rural people who had been fighting for land and education for a long time; it was a reflection of bureaucratic capitalism and imperialism, which aim to exploit and dominate rural workers, negatively affecting the lives of the students, who had to move to other schools, facing difficulties with transportation, adaptation and learning. In particular, the closure of the school and the resulting displacement of the children affects those aged between 3 and 5 even more, as well as being illegal, since the provision of early childhood education is obligatory in the rural community itself. On the other hand, we found that the municipality used undemocratic strategies and blackmailed the population of the rural communities involved, opposing the provision of basic rights such as education and employment as if they were mutually exclusive. The conclusion is that the right to education in the countryside is not being guaranteed to the children, young people and adults in the community investigated, and that greater mobilization and unity of families is needed to continue the struggle for its realization.