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A recipe for a more equitable and efficient learning system

2020-08-26T22:46:12.073Z


The educational reform carried out in the Brazilian state of Ceará opens a new door on how to address the learning deficit in the country and in the rest of Latin America


Students from the city of Sobral, in Ceará, Brazil. Luiz Queiroz / Asscom Seduc Sobral

In a historic session, the Brazilian Senate unanimously approved this week a constitutional reform that consolidates the new Basic Education Development Fund (Fundeb), the main mechanism for financing public education in the country, which will benefit more than 38 million students enrolled in public schools in Brazil.

Several important changes were made. The amendment increased the amount the federal government contributes to the fund from 10% to 23%. Funding is estimated to increase to R $ 17.5 billion (about $ 350 million) in 2021 and reach R $ 39.3 billion ($ 786 million) in 2026. Another key change is that resources are now being transferred directly to municipalities poorer rather than states, which makes investments in education more equitable.

Likewise, it associates part of the national transfers linked to educational results and obliges all States to implement a results-based mechanism to encourage educational attainment in their respective municipalities. This aspect of the reform was inspired by a pioneering experience in the northeastern state of Ceará, which has proven to be a good answer to overcome learning poverty: the inability to read and understand a simple text at the age of ten.

Such a constitutional amendment is particularly timely, especially in the context of the covid-19 educational crisis. Currently, around 48 million Brazilian students from public and private schools are deprived of face-to-face classes. And only five of the 27 Brazilian states provide Internet access to public school students.

Fundeb's new model could help states close post-pandemic education gaps.

There are good reasons to use the case of Ceará at Fundeb as a strong example of a successful education system. In just over a decade, Ceará improved the quality of education much faster than any part of Brazil by implementing a series of reforms.

The state introduced a results-based funding model that included strong support to municipalities with less technical capacity to achieve equitable and universal literacy by the end of second grade. These reforms allowed the state to significantly improve the learning levels of elementary and middle school students with a high level of efficiency in the use of resources. The state had about 1.2 million students enrolled in municipal schools at the primary and lower secondary levels at the time of the reforms. It now has around 900,000.

An Expert Insight

Education experts from the World Bank agreed that the Ceará approach has proven to be efficient and replicable for the rest of the country and the Latin American region.

“The municipalities of Ceará had the greatest increase in the quality of education, measured by the Index of Development of Basic Education of Brazil (IDEB), between 2005 and 2017. Almost all 184 municipalities of Ceará initially had very low levels of quality in teaching and very limited resources, investing around a third of spending on education per student in the richest Brazilian states, such as São Paulo ”, explained André Loureiro, senior economist and coordinator of the report The State of Ceará in Brazil is a Role Model for Reducing Learning Poverty, which provides in-depth scrutiny of state education reform.

“At a fundamental level, what Ceará's municipal schools have achieved is firmly based on a knowledge of the Science of Learning, which emphasizes three key principles: first, that learning must occur with joy, rigor, and purpose; second, that improvement requires preparation, opportunities, and incentives to improve; and third, that sustained performance improvement requires constant and focused feedback. Sobral, first, and then Ceará have adopted these principles in the daily practices and interactions of students, teachers, principals and even district officials in classrooms and schools, ”said Omar Arias, manager of Knowledge and Global Engagement for Education of the World Bank.

Five pillars support the educational model of Ceará:

  • An incentive system created by the state government for municipalities linked to better educational results.
  • Technical support to municipal school networks striving to improve learning objectives, with a focus on improving teacher effectiveness.
  • Sustained political leadership.
  • A robust and reliable monitoring and evaluation system in education to identify the municipalities that needed the most support.
  • The delegation of primary and secondary schools to municipal governments, providing a high degree of autonomy to design and implement their educational policies.

"The five pillars are fundamental and interdependent, including the financial incentives and technical assistance pillars," said Emanuela Di Gropello, manager of the World Bank's Education practice in Latin America.

According to Di Gropello, the analysis shows that the impacts on educational outcomes are limited when only some of the pillars are considered. The level of complementarity is particularly high between incentives and technical support to municipalities to improve educational outcomes.

“Creating well-designed incentives to improve educational outcomes without technical support can still improve average educational outcomes, but some municipalities may become discouraged and lag behind, with negative impacts on equity and undermining the overall benefits of such a policy,” Di said. Gropello.

The transformation was soon noticed. Ceará students have better scores in literacy and numeracy in Brazil upon graduation from primary education. “Today Ceará has the lowest rates of learning poverty in Brazil. Furthermore, the outstanding educational results of the students of Ceará are well above what would be expected given the socioeconomic context in which they live and learn ”, acknowledged Di Gropello.

At a time when the reformulation of the education system is necessary due to the covid-19 pandemic, the educational model of Ceará can be a formidable example for all countries that wish to rebuild better education systems than before, with the aim of eradicate learning poverty and build human capital.

Juliana Braga is a World Bank communicator for Brazil.

Source: elparis

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