‘We spend, but don’t produce quality education’, says Paulo Tafner …

Founder and CEO of the recently launched Institute for Mobility and Social Development (IMDS), economist Paulo Tafner says that it is necessary to improve the quality of spending to ensure that Brazilians can compete on an equal footing in the labor market and ascend the social pyramid. Without social mobility, according to him, the country will have less potential for growth. Check out the main excerpts from the interview:

What is behind the problem?

Basically, a first observation is that there is no shortage of money. We spend more on education than many countries in the world do, and we do not produce quality education for children. And education is the most potent factor for social mobility. We spend an average of what other countries spend in proportion to the GDP on health, but our health in general is poor. The actual result of the expenditure is very precarious in Brazil. This means having a major change in public policy. In the area of education, it is not only necessary to keep track of expenditures, but also to control the quality of expenditures.