A participação do "Grupo Cogna Educação" na financeirização da Educação Básica do Brasil

Abstract

Cogna Education Group (formerly Kroton) is known for being part of the oligopoly in the higher education segment, achieved by means of an aggressive policy of purchases and mergers. This conglomerate of companies was made possible, to a large extent, thanks to the public partnership mainly financed by the Student Financing Fund - FIES and - University for All Program - Prouni.The peak of FIES contracts was the year 2014. However, with the implementation of new rules of the Program (changes in the grace period and in interest rates), the Cogna group revenues from higher education started falling from 2016 onwards. Other factors also contributed to this scenario, such as the refusal of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) to approve one of the many mergers proposed by Cogna, this time with Estácio de Sá. Due to this scenario, and the volatility of private higher education, the Cogna group searched other markets for investment. In 2018 the group purchased Somos Educação, a leading company in basic education, both in terms of the number of their own schools aimed at private basic education and by the publishers that serve the National Textbook Program - PNLD (Ática, Scipione and Saraiva). In addition, Cogna carried out a restructuring in 2019, aimed at managing the business. After growing dramatically in private higher education, the company structured itself to maintain this sector and intensified its activities in private and public basic education, increasing and diversifying its revenues. In public basic education, the Cogna group operates through the PNLD and through service sales with Management Systems. In private basic education, the group also sells books, teaching materials/workbooks and provides platform services, teaching and management systems and language courses. The process of financialization in higher education and now in basic education is present on a global scale and has the expansion of monetary capital and the accumulation of resources, consequently, by means of the profitability of capital, having education changed into a commodity. It is a process whose main agents are business groups and national and foreign investors (banks and investment funds). Financialization occurs through direct and indirect processes, originated from relations with the State, whether through the transfer of public funds, tax exemptions and immunities, or a combination of both. This process is opposed to an emancipatory and quality education, deepening the social abyss between public basic education and education aimed at the children of the elite. It is a process that added to the tensions that have been occurring in the country, especially in the field of education, makes the school even more evident as a field of ideological dispute and confronts education as a universal right.