Brazilian students reach high school knowing less than their peers in other countries

By Gabriele Bonat

One of the reasons why high school is a failure in Brazil is the low level of knowledge of many students who reach this stage of basic education.

The high school reform, whose implementation deadlines were suspended by the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government, tries to provide a way out for these students who, due to their profile and lack of content, tend to leave basic education with no professional future.

Most Brazilian students enter the 1st year of high school with knowledge equivalent to what their peers in other countries learn in the 5th or 6th year of elementary school.

This low quality of Brazilian elementary education, pointed out by national assessments, is also confirmed internationally by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which assesses the reading, math, and science skills of 15-year-old students from more than 72 countries and economies.

In 2018, Brazil achieved below-average levels in other countries in all three areas.

In reading, it ranked 57th, with 413 points (the average was 487).

In mathematics, 70th place, with 384 points (the average was 489).

In science, 64th place, with 404 points (the average was 489).

“In Brazil, teaching nothing, practically nothing, until the 5th grade is conventional.”

“Then, very little until the 9th grade, and everything gets complex in high school,” laments Ilona Becskeházy, a master and doctor in educational policy.

“High school students are intellectually immature; they bring little content.”

“In three years, high school cannot teach because the student is immature and cannot understand.”

“So the students leave the system because they don’t understand what they are learning,” he adds.

In this scenario, to avoid the so-called “neither-nor” young people who neither work nor study, the high school reform tried to prevent dropouts with training itineraries for university preparation and technical education (as occurs with 50% of students in countries like Germany and South Korea).

“The new high school law seeks to solve some of the problems, especially the low workload and the excess of subjects, by doing like other countries that have good educational systems,” explains Claudia Costin, director of the FGV’s Center for Educational Policy and former director of education at the World Bank.

“By exposing the young person to subjects and choosing an area of deepening,” she highlights.

Claudia Costin also highlights a prejudice against vocational-technical education in Brazil, and it is necessary to advance in this area.

“Both young people who are not going to university and those who want to go can have subjects that are in dialogue with the world of work.”

“Paraná, for example, has inserted programming in every year. I think this is a good idea; it will help professionalize young people and prepare them for a more complex world.”

Anamaria Camargo, Master in Education with a focus on eLearning from the University of Hull, England, says that the idea of diversifying curricular itineraries and focusing on technical education shows students that university is not the only and not the best path for everyone, as happens in other countries, where technical positions have the same financial and social recognition as graduates.

“If Brazil doesn’t change, we will fall even further behind.”

For Ilona, one of the necessary adjustments in the high school reform is to bring the education networks closer to the productive sector, to give young people the opportunity for internships and adequate preparation in a profession.

“We can’t let high school become a big factory that produces young people who are neither studying nor working,” she warns.

With information from Gazeta do Povo