The Ministry of Education and Culture of Brazil (MEC) proposed in 2009 that the universities should use the ENEM, a non-mandatory national exam, as a standard university entrance qualification test. The "new ENEM", as it is known, is composed of 180 multiple choice questions in five main areas (natural sciences, human sciences, math, Portuguese and either English or Spanish as a foreign language) and an essay.
The proposal's main objective is to democratize access to higher education, opportunities for federal jobs, academic mobility and induce the restructuring of the curricula of high school.
The universities have the autonomy to choose whether or not they want to use the exam, and if they want to, they can also choose the way it is used:
As a single phase, with a unified system of selection, electronic and online;
As a first phase;
Combined with the university's test (using it to admit only part of its students);
As a single phase for the remaining chairs.