Renato Janine Ribeiro Takes Office as Minister of Education

Renato Janine Ribeiro assina o termo de posse como ministro da Educação ao lado da presidente Dilma Rousseff

In a ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Brasília on Monday, April 6, professor Renato Janine Ribeiro, former adviser to the IEA and coordinator of IEA’s “The Future Inquires Us” research group, was sworn in as Minister of Education.

Numerous Brazilian authorities and education officials attended the inauguration, hosted by president Dilma Rousseff. The IEA was represented by its director, Martin Grossmann, and by visiting professor Massimo Canevacci, who were also present during the transfer of office at the Ministry of Education.

Innovative experiments

To assist him at the Ministry in working through innovative experiments in education, Janine invited another IEA member, sociologist Helena Singer, member of the “The Future Inquires Us” research group.

In an interview with journalist Marcelo Leite published on Monday, April 6, in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, Janine said he invited Helena “to canvass the most innovative educational experiments being carried out in Brazil, and eventually bring about changes in education, which need not be on a large scale for now.” According to him, these will become a testing ground “to see if they might work on a large scale or only in small ranges.”

Helena has a doctorate from USP’s School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH), with specialization in Sociology of Conflicts from the University of Pennsylvania (United States), and a postdoctorate from the Laboratory of Studies and Research on Education and Diversity at University of Campinas (UNICAMP). In addition to her membership in the “The Future Beckons” research group, coordinated by Janine, Helena was until now director of the Cidade Escola Aprendiz Association. She was also a founding member of the Politeia Institute for Democratic Education and of USP’s Center of Psychopathology, Public Policies in Mental Health and Communicative Actions in Public Health. She is the author of República de crianças: sobre experiências escolares de resistência (2010) and Discursos desconcertados (2003), among other books and articles on education and human rights published in Brazil and abroad.

Photo: Roberto Stucker Filho/PR