31 / 126
31
Brazilian education has not been doing well in
recent years. In 2016, Brazil was ranked 60th
out of 76 countries evaluated in the latest
edition of the Program for International Student
Assessment (PISA). As of 2016, 3.8 million
Brazilians aged 4 to 17 years were not attending
school, 13 million people aged over 15 (8.3%
of the population) were still illiterate, and just
32.3% of Brazilians aged between 18 and 24 were
in, or had been in, higher education.
In this context, Fundação Getulio Vargas,
through its Provost Office, published an
article entitled “Brasil Pátria Educadora: Será?
Uma proposta de solução viável” (“Brazil an
Educational Homeland: Really? A proposal
for a feasible solution”), in order to discuss
the country’s situation and analyze possible
solutions to get young people to attend school
and facilitate their professional development.
According to this article, Brazil is experiencing
many problems in education. They include a
shortage of teachers and lack of infrastructure
at public schools. A survey carried out by the
Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC) found a
shortage of 170,000 elementary and high school
teachers in the public sector. The latest school
census also showed that 65% of public schools
do not have a library, and according to studies by
the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC)
and University of Brasilia (UnB), 44% of them do
not have televisions or computers.
To rectify this situation, the Provost Office’s
educators propose investment in basic
education and higher salaries for teachers, in
order to attract better-qualified professionals.
They also call for investment to improve
infrastructure, including buildings, laboratories,
recreation facilities, and high-quality virtual
and physical libraries. The inspiration for these
ideas came from success stories, such as in the
United States, where the Teach for America
(TFA) non-profit program was created in the
1990s, to recruit youth from the country’s best
universities to teach at partner public schools.
Another proposal is related to high school
education. According to the study, many students
complete elementary education, but do not go
on to high school, as they are not encouraged to
learn. One solution to this problem would be to
implement practical activities at schools, to allow
young people to acquire a profession, such as
carpentry, building maintenance or computing.
To this end, the idea is for all high school students
to do technical training, which would be a kind
of bridge, giving youth an opportunity to leave
poverty and join the job market. In this way,
the country would be able to develop inclusive
policies and mobilize all citizens to effectively
participate in society.
The article also looks at successful initiatives
conducted in Brazil in the past, as possible
solutions to be continued. One of them is
the Rondon Project, carried out jointly by the
Brazilian Ministries of Defense and Education
between 1967 and 1989. Although it was not
mandatory to take part in this scheme, demand
for it was very high, as it offered students a
unique opportunity to learn, gain professional
experience and see different regions of the
country. In 2005, the project was re-launched
by the federal government, and since then it has
taken place in around 830 municipalities.
This project is designed to promote social
integration through the voluntary participation
of university students in the pursuit of solutions
to assist the sustainable development of
deprived communities.
There is also compulsory military service in Brazil.
However, it is unable to cover all young people,
because of the limited dimensions of the Armed
Forces. The idea of the project is to require all
young people (both male and female) who do
not serve in the Armed Forces to do compulsory
civilian service.
For youth from deprived communities, compulsory
civilian services would consist of learning a
profession through technical training, in order to
include them in the middle class. The proposal for
students fromwealthier families inhigher education
would be to perform academic activities, such as
200 hours of “complementary activities,” in which
students would work as tutors during vacations.
As well as abiding by the Brazilian Constitution,
these would be opportunities to definitively put
education onto the right path, to promote the
development that Brazil so needs.