It used to be that people would think of Brazil in terms of sparkling beaches, suave bossa nova clubs, and the occasional scantly clad samba dancer. That was before it became one of the most talked-about success stories in contemporary international economics. Tellingly, Brazil has recently added glitzy cities, chic brasileiros and booming industries to the images that characterize it. In my previous article, I traced the history of this celebrated rise to economic stardom by focusing on the Plano Real and other measures taken to dig the country out of ruinous inflation. Since then, it would seem that everything is only getting better for the Lusophone nation.
The largest state in South America is now also the largest economy in the region, and its GDP growth continues, even as most countries struggle with the aftermath of the recession. Its agriculture and mineral industries are going strong and reaching markets all over the world, while demand for consumer products in the home front has skyrocketed. Indeed, the country has become an analogy for economic progress, just as it became a byword for chronic inflation just two decades ago. However, Brazilians must not let their optimism blind them from the pressing issues that they face. Once again using Senator Cristovam Buarque’s recent guest lectures at Brown University’s Watson Institute as a reference, this article will focus on the challenges in Brazil’s public education and its effect on the country’s production model, a key issue that must be addressed in order to maintain sustainable growth.
Despite boasting such a celebrated economy, Brazil’s performance on early public education is among the worst in the hemisphere. There’s been some improvement over the last fifteen years, but the country is still far behind other large economies. An OECD report on education based on an international standardized test shows that the country’s youth ranked 53rd in a group of 65 countries, scoring under France – the next economy larger than Brazil’s – by a whopping 32 countries. Despite the fact that 97% of Brazilian children have access to education – and even though poor families receive government stipends to put their kids through school – about 30% of students never finish basic education, and only 42% graduate from high school.
Low teaching standards are a part of the problem. There is an obvious social stigma against the profession, and the government has struggled with setting up an efficient system of teacher education and recruitment. Reynaldo Fernandes, former president of the National Institute of Education Studies and Surveys, says that it is “difficult to attract trainee teachers from middle and upper class backgrounds because of the low pay, low standards and low status of the occupation.” It doesn’t help that Brazil’s public universities see education studies as a relatively unimportant goal and often assign it to their least competitive colleges. Before 2006, teachers were not required to have studied at universities at all. Since public schools in Brazil usually operate in half-days, with only 4 hours of classes, many teachers get jobs at different schools at different times of the day, leading to teacher absenteeism and lower quality of classes. The repercussions of this issue are far-reaching. Poor teaching leads to low performance, which often means grade repetition for many students. Stunted progress makes it harder for students to compete for higher education against peers in well-off states, which disincentivizes students from attending schools in the first place. Simon Schwartzman, a leading political scientist in Brazil, explains that it is “not the lure of jobs, but the poor quality of teaching and irrelevant curriculum that drive students out of school.”
Another problem is inequitable funding at different levels of education. Public universities in Brazil receive much more funding than the primary and secondary schools. In fact, the spending per student on higher education is nearly six times higher than on primary education, whereas it is only about 30% higher on average in OECD countries. Logically, this leads to the development of a first-class public university system, with the unfortunate problem that most public school attendees can’t aspire to enter due to low test scores. Recognizing the poor quality of their early schooling, many aren’t inspired to seek higher education anyway.
Considering the extent of these problems, it’s no wonder that so much of policymakers’ attention is directed at fixing the problem facing Brazilian youths and their families. As mentioned in the previous article in this series, Senator and ex-Education Minister Cristovam Buarque has contributed much to the field of education policy, beginning with his famous pet project, the Conditional Cash Transfer Programs. This wealth redistribution initiative – called Bolsa Escola – was placed under the Ministry of Education and was meant to encourage parents in low-income families to send children to school by paying them for each child being educated. The program’s reach grew under the Cardoso administration, but his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, bundled Bolsa Escola with other poverty aid programs and pinned them all under the label Bolsa Família. This move diminished the pedagogical incentives and limited the possibility of upward mobility for poor youngsters. This only exacerbates Brazil’s large inequality gap, one of the five worst in the world.
To resolve the situation, Buarque argues that management of Bolsa Escola should be returned to the Ministry of Education, which would operate with a long-term goal of raising families out of poverty through schooling, not just ameliorating their situation. Incentives for education must be returned. The country has only a limited amount of resources it can dedicate to this program, and so it must work under the supposition that educated youngsters can procure better jobs and ultimately lead their families out of poverty. To do so, people striving for upward mobility must have access to decently-paying jobs, the lack of which constitutes a whole separate problem, yet one that is inextricably tied to the challenges in education.
Even though Brazil developed rapidly over the past decade, the lack of improvement in education could limit it from realizing its full economic potential. Buarque recognized that the country has gained much of its growth through the production of primary products and materials, such as ores and agricultural products. As Brazil’s economic position improves, however, it can no longer depend so heavily on cheap, relatively unskilled labor. Moving from an economy based on commodities to one based on creating refined products from raw materials requires a more educated workforce. While some innovative industries like aviation tech and pharmaceuticals already have a large presence in the country, the economy would be much better off if they could hire more local scientists and engineers instead of outsourcing to China or India–something that can only be achieved by better education.
In light of all these problems, the question inevitably comes to mind: Is the rise of Brazil truly sustainable? The answer is yes, but only if – in Buarque’s own words – “sustainability is brought to the table”. Once Brazilians make a concerted effort to create sustainability, rather than just hoping things work themselves out, their country will be on a better path to long-term success.
Senator Buarque offered his recommendations for how to do that by improving Bolsa Escola. But what Buraque didn’t mention is that the Bolsa plan might not go far enough. In order to solve the root of the problem, kids must be incentivized not just to go to school, but to also perform well once they are there. If government stipends are tied to performance levels, both parents and children have a reason to seek education, to work hard and, in the process, better the family’s future prospects.
For Bolsa to really succeed, the government should also fix the problem of unbalanced spending on education by channeling more money to primary and high schools. There’s no point to developing reputable public universities if much of the public has no chance to pass the entrance exams. If schools were given more resources to buy materials and pay better salaries for teachers, then disenfranchised students could have a realistic hope of getting into college, and might choose to stay in school instead of working undesirable jobs for minimal profit.
The next step is logical. After universities are developed, costs are mitigated, and schools are improved, Brazil should look at the teaching in those schools. Teacher standards should be consistent with what the country expects from its school system. This means better education studies programs in universities, as well as better evaluation for teachers seeking employment. The government won’t have to deal just with the mechanics of the problem, but also the cultural stigma. The prejudice against the profession must be eliminated for more educated individuals to join its ranks.
Ultimately, if all these things can be achieved, the skilled worker shortage will cease to be a problem. There may not be a Brazilian equivalent to Steve Jobs yet, but as long as Brazil values the contribution of more complex industries to its economy and focuses on bettering its student’s situation, innovation will soon follow, bringing the country, and its economy, to even more prominence on the world stage.