Brazil’s disastrous Ministry of Education: the story so far

On Wednesday morning, Minister of Education Ricardo Vélez-Rodríguez sat before the Committee of Education in the House of Representatives. The public hearing was scheduled so that Mr. Velez could lay out his proposals for the coming months, indicating whether certain government programs would be continued or not.

After a sleepy and drawn-out four-hour session—in which Mr. Vélez-Rodríguez made a confusing defense of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar while explaining his views on a civil-military school system—Tabata Amaral, a 25-year-old first-term representative for the Democratic Labor Party, took the microphone to address the Education Minister.

She criticized a printed presentation distributed by Mr. Vélez-Rodríguez, containing “two or three wishes” for each area of education. “Where are the projects? Where are the objectives? Who is responsible? This isn’t strategic planning, it’s a wish list.”

Ms. Amaral continued, stating that Ricardo Vélez-Rodríguez’s “inability to present a proposal, to know basic data, is disrespectful not only to education, to the committee, or to parliament, but to Brazil as a whole.” A video of the young representative’s dressing-down of the Minister of Education, 50 years her senior, went viral on social media and drew widespread plaudits (below, in Portuguese).

The fallout from the hearing was such that the very same evening, GloboNews journalist Eliane Catanhêde reported that Mr. Vélez-Rodríguez was to be sacked the following morning. A little over an hour later, President Jair Bolsonaro denied this, claiming that it was another example of “fake news” against his government.

It is unclear whether Ms....