Da política à mercadoria: o Colégio Estadual Odorico Tavares e a reconfiguração neoliberal da Educação na Bahia

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze the closure of Odorico Tavares State School in light of neoliberal rationality, seeking to understand how this logic influenced educational policies and decisions regarding the management of public education in Bahia. The research is based on the understanding that, in this context, education is no longer conceived as a fundamental social right and is progressively treated as a commodity. To achieve this objective, the study: (i) discusses the foundations of neoliberalism and its implications for education as a social right; (ii) analyzes the context of educational policies in Bahia in light of these influences; and (iii) investigates the process of closing the Odorico Tavares School, relating it to neoliberal guidelines and changes in the management of state public education. From a methodological point of view, this investigation is qualitative in nature and aims to contribute to the social and educational field through the rigorous use of methodological procedures involving bibliographic and documentary research. The analysis of the data was based on historical-dialectical materialism and guided by critical theory as a tool for understanding the contradictions that permeate the field of education in contemporary times. The investigation understands education as a historically determined social practice embedded in the dynamics of capital reproduction. The analysis draws on Marx (1843) and Engels (1884) to understand the state and forms of alienation; on Florestan Fernandes (1974) to analyze the mediations between dependence, modernization, and education in the Brazilian context; and on contemporary authors such as Harvey (2008), Dardot and Laval (2016), and Foucault (2008), who problematize neoliberal rationality and its effects on subjectivation and public management. It also articulates the contributions of Silva (2007), who discusses education in the Bahian context, and Silva (2018), whose reflection aids in the specific reading of the case of Colégio Odorico Tavares. Based on this, official reports, news articles, academic publications, and public records were explored to understand the transformations of CEOT since its implementation in the 1990s until its closure and subsequent attempt to auction the property. The results indicate that the process of emptying and dismantling the school reflects the insertion of market logic into public management, expressed in the outsourcing of services, the subletting of spaces, and the state's abdication of responsibility. Furthermore, understanding the CEOT case within the context of Salvador's urban reconfiguration indicates how the commodification of education can be linked to broader processes of urban space transformation, straining the right to the city and producing forms of symbolic and material exclusion of communities. The analysis also reveals how neoliberal rationality produces a new type of subject, the “entrepreneur of oneself,” and transforms the teaching function, orienting it toward the formation of individuals who are competitive and adaptable to the demands of capital. This research led to the conclusion that the closure of the school represents not only the collapse of a public education policy, but also the consolidation of a social project that subordinates the collective interest to the logic of profit and efficiency.