This report was published in Economist.com in June 4th 2009. The title is above. This is a summary.
Brazil`s woeful schools, more than perhaps anything else, are what hold it back.They are improving, but too slowly. When comes to the quality of schools, it falls far short even of many other developing countries despite heavy spending on education.
In the OECD`s worldwide tests of pupils`s abilities in reading, maths and science. Brazil is near the bottom. Until the 1970s, South Korea was about as prosperous as Brazil but, helped by its superior school system, it has leapt ahead and now has around four times the national income per head.
Brazil began its education late. When the country was a Portuguese colony even the elite has little access to education at home. In 1930 just one in five children went to school.
Cash transfer to poor families, conditional on their children attending school, became generous and were enrolled together with other programmes. Thanks to this programmes 97% of children aged 7-14 now have access to schooling and attendance is good. The lack of improving schooling falls to state and municipal governments. They face many problems, but two standing out.
First Brazil suffers from teacher`s truancy. Teachers enjoy a right to five days` absence a year, but some take many more. On a bad day in a bad school in bad states, teachers absenteeism can reach 30%.
Second, too many pupils repeat whole schools years over and over and after, lots os children drop out early. Just 42% complete high school. Improving the quality of all school so that more children pass would lead to a market increase in the amount of money available to each pupil. To acomplish this Brazil needs qualified teachers who are in short supply. Many have two or three different jobs and complaint that conditions are intimidating and the pay is low.
Jonathan Hannay, who runs support for children at risk, a local charity, and has four children in Diadema area, says things have improved in the past year, if only because teachers and pupils now work from matching sets of teaching manuals and exercises books. Such small changes can make a difference. But, if it is ever to live up to its potencial. Brazil needs to keeping reforming schools bearing down on the teachers union and spending more on basic education.
