The business-military dictatorship and the University Reform of 1968

repression, co-option and training for the market

Abstract

This essay addresses the context that led to the emergence of the University Reform promoted by Law N^o 5.540/68, implemented through repression, coaptation, and market-oriented training. The text is based on documentary sources, academic articles, and books addressing the topic, thus being of a bibliographic and documentary nature. We start from the premise that the reform implemented by the corporate-military dictatorship was conceived based on business interests aligned with U.S. capital and materialized through financial cooperation agreements and technical assistance to Brazilian education, such as those established within the MEC-USAID framework. The main objective is to reflect on the connections between the dictatorship, business interests, and the 1968 University Reform, analyzing the articulations within universities that strategically co-opted the participation of rectors, directors, and other civilians, who contributed to the logic of the corporate market. In this regard, we argue that the educational project of the military governments was legitimized in the name of technical efficiency, economic development, and the modernization of capitalist relations. Therefore, it was not an isolated phenomenon but a project inherent to the dependent and associated development of our economy. Thus, the defense of equal opportunities and the expansion of enrollment were merely instruments that reinforced the hegemony of capital over the working class. Finally, the Higher Education Reform was characterized by a technocratic discourse that aligned universities with capital, both oriented toward market-driven training.