This year, the Brazilian Undergraduate Student Exchange Program (known by the Portuguese-language acronym PEC-G), which gives students from developing countries with which Brazil has established cultural and educational accords the opportunity to attend institutes of higher learning, is offering a total of 505 spots, 26% fewer than last year. However, thanks to the positive performance of its college students, Cape Verde continues to top the list of students selected for the program, occupying 133 of all of the vacancies offered.

After Cape Verde comes Guinea Bissau, with 95 students selected, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 78, and Angola, with 49.

Students from 26 countries in Africa, Central and South America were chosen for the program. Of the countries sharing borders with Brazil, Paraguay led the list, with 28 students benefiting from the program. Medicine, administration, dentistry, economics and literature and languages were the majors with the highest numbers of students selected, beating out communication sciences, which had previously offered the most slots.

The students selected will attend the respective institutes of higher learning free of charge. The PEC-G selection process, however, takes a number of criteria into consideration, including proof that the individual is able to pay for his or her expenses in Brazil and proof of fluency in Portuguese in the case of students hailing from non-Portuguese speaking countries.

The students selected have to inform the local Brazilian Embassy or the institution in which they applied for the program – in the case of the Cape Verde, the Department of Professional Qualification – whether they will accept the slot by November 5. If they fail to do so, the spot will be given to another applicant.

Interviewed by A Semana Online, a the president of the Association of African Students of Minas Gerais, Belinazir do Espírito Santo, expressed satisfaction with the performance of African students in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, called for greater interaction among students, as he has noticed a certain “isolation of groups of students by country.”

With regards to Cape Verdean students in particular, Espírito Santo called for a greater presence on the part of institutions responsible for sending the students to Brazil. “I found out that the study stipend from the Cape Verdean government is given only for majors that aren’t available in Cape Verde, and that students who come to Brazil to study in an area that is available in Cape Verde will have to be supported by their families. I don’t criticize this method, but I think that there should be accompaniment, at least in the realm of health care, as only students with government scholarships are given health insurance by the Cape Verdean Embassy in Brazil,” affirmed Belinazir do Espírito Santo.