HIGHER EDUCATIONAL COOPERATION IN THE DOMAIN OF THE COMMUNITY OF PORTUGUESE-SPEAKING COUNTRIES (CPLP)
Educational cooperation is one of the main objectives of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP). In this sense, Brazil has developed important initiatives, such as the student-agreement program, which allows foreigners to carry out their studies in Brazilian higher education institutions, and the creation of the University of International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusofonia (UNILAB). However, between 2014 and 2015, two Strategic Plans for multilateral cooperation in the fields of Education and Science and Technology were created in the CPLP. Both aimed to survey and analyze the conditions of the national education systems of the Member States and, based on this, outline actions to strengthen these systems until 2020. In this interval, however, the domestic and international scenarios changed significantly, which leads us to to want to investigate the direction of the plans in question. This is the main objective of the research. As a secondary objective, but no less important, we intend to discuss the Brazilian “racial issue” in the light of Brazil's relations with Portugal and with “Portuguese-speaking” Africa.