World · South & Central Asia · 18 hrs ago
Enem 2026 essay focuses on valuing Brazil’s universal health system
Candidates taking the first day of Brazil’s Enem 2026 on Sunday wrote about valuing the SUS, Brazil’s public health system, as a universal right.
Teachers said the topic shifted from recent themes about minority groups, which had focused on the visibility of historically marginalised groups.
The essay still addressed a social issue, as recent exams have done.
Its positive framing called for candidates to explain why the SUS matters and what blocks universal access.
The exam also included 90 multiple-choice questions in languages and human sciences, covering subjects such as Indigenous resistance, women’s history, artificial intelligence and the MST.
Teachers said the test required interpretation and knowledge of the subjects, and one languages teacher noted more emphasis on content than in the previous edition.
The Enem 2026 essay topic was “Valuing the SUS as a universal right.”
Teachers said the topic differed from the previous three years, when essay prompts focused on social minorities.
They said the prompt still addressed a social issue and called for discussion of the importance of the public health system and obstacles to universal access.
The first day of the exam also included 90 multiple-choice questions in language and human sciences.
Questions covered subjects including Indigenous resistance, women’s place in history, slavery and the Rouanet Law.
- Who
- Enem 2026 candidates.
- What
- The essay prompt focused on valuing Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS) as a universal right.
- When
- November 8, 2026, the first day of the exam.
- Where
- Not stated.
- Why
- Not stated.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
The first day of Enem 2026 included the essay prompt and 90 multiple-choice questions.
Teachers Isaac Santos and Daniel Victor discussed the essay topic during a live broadcast.
- Essay topic
- Valuing the SUS as a universal right
- Exam date
- November 8, 2026
- Multiple-choice questions
- 90
- Previous essay topics
- The previous three years focused on social minorities
- Exam body
- Inep (National Institute for Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira)
1 source
What people are saying
When we talk about universalizing the SUS, we are talking about a democratic process within Brazilian history and world history.
It did not include an explicit focus on gender, race or age, that is, on a minority social group, as happened in previous years.
What the candidate needed to understand was the exam board’s implicit logic: if it needs to be valued, it is because the service is currently undervalued. And if it needs to be a universal right, it is because access is not yet universal in practice.