| Hello, *|NOME|* In April of this year, IMDS started a partnership with the government of the state of Piauí, formalized through a Technical Cooperation Agreement (TCA) with the Planning Secretariat. The purpose of the agreement is to provide technical support for four years in the areas of child health, violence prevention and education. The first work plan will deal with the monitoring and evaluation of the policy of universalization of full-time education in the state. Piauí already has this modality in 70% of the schools in the state network and wants to reach 100% in the coming years. Most Brazilian students in basic education stay in school for around four and a half hours a day, from Monday to Friday. The National Education Plan (NEP), however, seeks to increase this workload. The last NEP, referring to the period between 2014 and 2024, already established as a goal the expansion of the offer of full-time education (workload of at least seven hours a day) to 50% of schools and 25% of students in basic education. To understand how this type of policy influences social mobility, it is necessary to be clear about what the additional hours of study represent in terms of the student's use of time and which students benefit from this change. In secondary education, the state of Pernambuco expanded the network of full-time secondary schools between 2008 and 2014. The educational project aimed to improve academic performance and prepare young people for the world of work and life. Concretely, this included increasing the workload of conventional subjects, tutoring, group study sessions, and new subjects such as entrepreneurship, human rights, and life project – a discipline in which students develop self-knowledge and plan their personal and professional lives. During that period, the state expanded the full-time and semi-full-time network in order to achieve the goal of having schools with these characteristics in all municipalities of Pernambuco. The impacts of this expansion included the improvement of school performance and Enem scores and a reduction in the homicide rate of young people aged 15 to 19 in the municipalities covered, in the three years following the implementation (see here). These results are in tangent with other evaluations in the international literature of experiences of implementation or expansion of full-time teaching with increased class time in conventional subjects, as shown by impact evaluations of experiences from Mexico ( here) and Uruguay (here). In the case of Chile, the introduction of full-time education has also meant a significant reduction in teenage pregnancy and youth crime (as shown in this article). In this case, there are also effects on labor income in early adulthood of those young people exposed to more time in the classroom (see this study for more details). Despite these encouraging results, there is one important point to watch carefully: the introduction of full-time education can be more or less inclusive, depending on its design. When there is an increase or deepening of the content taught without support for students with learning difficulties to keep up with this change, the worst performing students may not adapt. The increase in the workload may also imply the departure of high school students who need to work to supplement the family income. This is not necessarily a problem if the intention is to create a small number of elite schools in the public system so that high-achieving students in low-income families can have better opportunities. In São Paulo, full-time schools in middle school and high school had a jump in performance, but a reduction in the number of students, with migration of the worst performing students (more information here). Because there are a small number of these schools, students who leave have options at nearby public schools on a part-time basis. However, if the goal is to move ever closer to the universalization of full-time education, it is necessary to develop ways to include more vulnerable and low-performing students. After all, they need a school that is able to meet their needs. This partnership with the government of Piauí in full-time education strategy will allow IMDS to act directly on a promising instrument for improving the school-work transition, especially for young people from more socially vulnerable households, with expected permanent positive impacts on future income. In addition to the theme, the agreement is the first we have made with a state in the Northeast region, which makes us very proud indeed. See you at the next “Letter from IMDS”! Paulo Tafner CEO |
