Title:
COVID-19 is a wake-up call for Brazil’s universities
Author:
Fernanda Leal
Published:
University World News, 25 July 2020
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20200724100221821
From the article:
"In his book The Cruel Pedagogy of the Virus (A cruel pedagogia do virus in Portuguese), sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos reignites the debate on the circumstances that make it possible to know the truth about and the quality of institutions in any given society, whether at normal times or in times of crisis.
Specifically referring to the current coronavirus crisis, he asks: “What potential knowledge will emerge from the coronavirus pandemic?”
It is indeed important to ask what the current pandemic has to say about the Brazilian public university, in particular the university within a capitalist world system which devastates those in the ‘South’. Distanced from its autonomy and social function, including social outreach, the university and its capitalist productivist logic has little to contribute to the issues which are relevant to the society in which it is embedded."