| Hello, Leitor Within the scope of the Technical Cooperation Agreement (TCA) with the state of Rio Grande do Sul, one of the topics addressed was the 'Teacher of Tomorrow' program, which aims to train teachers with a focus on the development of cognitive and socio-emotional skills, especially in the so-called 21st century skills, defined by the National Common Curriculum Base (BNCC). The program in Rio Grande do Sul seeks to attract high school graduates, preferably from the public school system, for pedagogical training. In addition, it is intended that students eligible for support will be selected according to income and affirmative action criteria. The selected students would have to exercise a minimum of hours of teaching activities in the state public network. According to the planning of the Special Projects Office of the government of that state, the strategy for training these new teachers in Rio Grande do Sul would be through the transfer of resources to Community Institutions of Higher Education (ICES), selected through a public notice to offer vacancies in undergraduate courses (see here). As is well established from evidence in the literature, a good teacher generates permanent effects in the lives of his students. For instance Raj Chetty showed that students who study with good teachers are more likely to attend higher education, get into better universities, earn higher salaries, live in neighborhoods with a higher quality of life, and save more for retirement. As part of broader support in the context of this partnership, which we have discussed in a number of letters (for example, here), IMDS has provided technical support in the organization and availability of quality indicators for teacher training in Brazil and in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In fact, we have developed a panel of indicators that allows us to produce analyses on all the states of the federation, based on Inep data collected from 2013 to 2022. An analysis of Brazilian aggregate data reveals, for example, that, in 2022, 11.0% of teachers in the municipal network teaching in junior high school did not have higher education (a teaching degree or a bachelor's degree), with large differences between states within the same region: 31.0% in Maranhão and 7.5% in Ceará, for example. Urban areas have much higher teacher qualifications than in rural areas: 19.3% of teachers teaching in state schools in rural areas do not have higher education, compared to only 2.0% in state schools in urban areas. Despite the precariousness in rural areas, there are large interstate differences in the same region: rural state schools in Ceará have 15.2% of teachers without higher education, while in Maranhão this number reaches 70.0%. Obviously, a higher education degree is not a sufficient condition to assess the quality of a teacher, although the absence of it is indicative of low quality. Corporate resistance has blocked the application of teacher evaluation instruments at the national or even state level. Some countries, such as South Korea (see here) and Chile (see here), apply teacher evaluations in a standardized and routine manner as a form of school accountability. The Ministry of Education could play an inductive role, developing an instrument that measures, in a standardized manner and, therefore, with comparability between networks, the capacity of teachers to transmit the knowledge provided for by the BNCC. The partnership established within the scope of TCA with the state of Rio Grande do Sul reflects a joint commitment to the quality of teacher training and, by extension, to the excellence of education in Brazil. Collaborative efforts aim not only to empower teachers to meet contemporary classroom challenges, but also to ensure that all students, regardless of their socioeconomic background or geographic location, have access to quality education. The analysis of the aforementioned data highlights the great importance of well-designed educational policies and cooperation between different entities to drive significant changes in the Brazilian education system, which in turn plays a crucial role in promoting social mobility and reducing inequalities.
Until the next “Letter from IMDS”! Paulo Tafner CEO |
