D-News

Although Brazil has been paying more attention to education during the past few decades, with heavier public and private investments underwriting important accomplishments such as universal access to classrooms, secondary schooling (6th to 9th grades) has not received the attention it needs and deserves: there are few policies focused specifically on this segment, with limited private investments and little academic research.

In order to draw attention to this neglected stage, the Instituto Desiderata is publishing key data on its website drawn from a wide variety of sources, addressing secondary school in the City of Rio de Janeiro.  A hardcopy version was launched as a folder during the event organised by this Institute that gathered together the heads of institutions and foundations during the Corporate Foundations and Institutes Group (GIFE) Congress last week. 

These data include highlight important aspects for analysis and understanding, such as sharply dropping enrolments for the 6th and 7th grades (down from 85,000 in 2009 to 67,000 in 2010, according to data released by the Municipal Education Bureau); poor absorption of required content (12.10% in 9th grade mathematics according to the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP) in 2007); and a high age x grade lag (22.09% in 6th grade, according to data released by the Municipal Education Bureau in 2009).  The Director of the Instituto Desiderata, Beatriz Azeredo explains that: “it is vital to be familiar with the real situation in the Rio de Janeiro Municipal school network to that specific steps can be introduced, ensuring that this stage is completed with good quality.”

Supplementing the disclosure of quantitative data, during the second half of the year the Instituto Desiderata will announce the findings of the Secondary Education Diagnostic Survey, launched in March through a partnership with the Municipal Education Bureau (SME), the Instituto Paulo Montenegro, the Health Promotion Centre (CEDAPS) and the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC) in Rio de Janeiro.  This survey will be conducted by pupils in the municipal school network, who will be trained to provide qualitative information on key aspects of secondary schooling.