He is the Brazilian minister responsible for the educations of tens of millions of school children and university students.

But a series of excruciating high-profile spelling mistakes have left Abraham Weintraub’s orthographic reputation in tatters and academics and parents demanding his immediate expulsion from office.

Weintraub’s latest gaffe came on Wednesday when he sent a Twitter message to the politician son of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, containing the bogus claim that there had been no academic study of public security issues in Brazil.

That false assertion was “imprecionante” (“imprecive”), Weintraub declared, sparking widespread derision, even from supporters.

Weintraub eventually purged the offending post, but it was not his first such blunder. Last year the 48-year-old minister was similarly ridiculed for using the misspelled word “suspenção” (“suspention”) in an official document.

On another occasion Weintraub – one of Bolsonaro’s most loyal, provocative and, to critics, poorly chosen subordinates - appeared to confuse the author Franz Kafka with a Middle Eastern meatball, the kafta.

Weintraub’s latest slip triggered a mix of merriment and mortification.

“It’s disgraceful,” the prominent political journalist Eliane Cantanhêde complained of Weintraub’s “crass” howlers in her morning podcast.

“We might joke, but I think this is so serious,” she added. “He is the minister of ed-uc-at-ion.”

Daniel Peres, a philosopher professor at Bahia state’s federal university, said it was obvious the “mediocre” minister was not up to his job: “The minister is clearly someone who suffers from an information deficiency.”

But far more troubling was the ideological war Peres claimed members of Bolsonaro’s hard-right administration – led by Weintraub – were waging against Brazilian education.

Peres, 51, said: “The spelling mistakes are the least of his problems. The truth is he’s the frontline of the government’s ideological faction, with him responsible for internal matters and [foreign minister] Ernesto Araújo responsible for foreign policy.

“My sense is that either they have no vision for Brazilian education at all or that [they want to see] the complete destruction of Brazilian universities. They are people who simply do not believe in science and in knowledge as something that is strategic for a country’s development.”

Peres added: “I have been a university professor for 25 years and I’ve never seen anything like this.”