One-third of Brazilian universities deemed irregular

One in three universities in Brazil does not meet the legal requirements to be considered a ‘university’. According to the Brazilian constitution, private or public universities must have academic programmes, continuing studies offerings and scientific research – activities that rely on full-time faculty and solid graduate programmes, write Dante Ferrasoli and Estêvão Gamba for Folha De SPaulo.

The 1996 Education Guidelines Act (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases) determines that a university, to be called such, needs to have one-third of its faculty made up of full-time members. The institution also needs to offer two doctoral degrees and four masters degrees, according to another resolution from 2010.

But a Folha exclusive survey, based on data from the 2016 Higher Education Census and the Sucupira platform from CAPES (a federal agency that deals with higher education scholarships and research funding) from 2018, shows that 68 out of 196 universities in Brazil (34.7%) don't meet at least one requirement to be called such.
Full report on the Folha De SPaulo site