In 2016, widespread political and economic chaos was spreading across Brazil: every state showed signs of bankruptcy, delayed public servants' salaries, and frozen investments and career plans.
In April of that year, after the teachers' strike began at Escola Técnica Oscar Tenório, in the neighborhood of Marechal Hermes, the faculty received the news that the students would occupy the school. At that moment, the occupation was the best solution found by the students to assert their rights and demand that the authorities pay more attention to the students who would be the future of the country.
Student occupation - 2016
Image description: The image is a photograph of a woman standing in front of a barred metal gate. She is wearing a blue shirt with a white print and has a red bow in her hair. Beside her, two flyers are hanging on the gate. The top flyer reads "#OCUPA MARECHAL." The bottom flyer contains the text "UM SEGREDO: SEM AUNO NÃO TEM FALTA, OVA OU MATÉRIA! AUNO NA RUA JÁ!" with "ATÉ ALUNOS." below it. The background shows a metal structure and some plants.Many doubts arose in the minds of everyone involved: what do you mean, occupy the school? How would that happen? Would it really work? What do these students want? Why do this? How long would it last?
Despite this, there was, among the students, the certainty that they would fight, even amid the fear of all the danger of the deserted campus at night or the doubt regarding the state's responses — they would fight and make every effort worthwhile.
When the students occupied the school, all activities came to a halt - from the administrative departments to the classes themselves. But nobody just sat around doing nothing, because for about three months regular classes were replaced by cultural and socio-educational activities. The students were demanding basic rights owed to any student: quality education, improvements to the physical and pedagogical structure, as well as better working conditions for the teachers.
Report on the occupation of technical schools
Image description: The image is a photograph of a nighttime protest. In the central part, there is a group of people holding a white banner with the text "CADÊ A EDUCAÇÃO?" written in black. To the right, other protesters follow the banner, some holding signs. The background shows urban buildings, including one with the inscription "FAETEC" and other hanging signs. The lighting is artificial, typical of an urban night.At first, the movement was fairly well supported by most of the students' guardians and by the teachers. Only a few staff members didn't take it very well, since they were, in a way, prevented from carrying out their work. The administrative sectors were quite affected, but the students negotiated and allowed the staff to work without serving the public, only sending documents via email.
Despite being a positive initiative, with time and the arrival of negative responses from FAETEC, the movement began to lose momentum. The people in charge, who had previously supported the students, started pressuring them to return to normal activities.
The end of the movement, in fact, happened when the students began to receive negative responses to their demands, along with certain "threats" from FAETEC, stating that staff would only receive their salaries, materials, and supplies for the school after classes resumed, which greatly affected the movement.
Unfortunately, not all of the students' requests were met by the state.
