1. Early Childhood Education

Until recently, day-care programs for children aged 0-3 in Brazil were under the responsibility of different sectors of society, among which that of social workers. Only after the National Education Guidelines and Framework Law was passed, in 1996, the required integration among these sectors, provided for in the Constitution of 1988, began to be more systematically implemented. For this reason, the School Censuses, which constitute the main source of data on the educational situation in Brazil, only began to include day-care programs in 1998.

It must be highlighted that the first data on these programs are very partial, because they only began to be calculated by the School census recently, since the day-care centers and institutions assisting children under 4 are still in the process of registering and accrediting themselves with the Education Secretariats. After the passage of the LDB, according to which all day-care centers are to be included in the school system by 23 December 1999, states and municipalities began to organize themselves to issue Resolutions providing the required legal tools for opening and accrediting institutions according to nationally-accepted quality criteria. These criteria have been discussed by all bodies responsible for education in the country, namely, CONSED, UNDIME, the Forum of State-Level Education Councils and the National Association of Municipal Education Councils, which together with the Ministry of Education have drafted the document "Subsídios para abertura e credenciamento de instituições de educação infantil" (How to open and accredit early childhood education institutions) (Ministry of Education, 1998). This document has been used as a basic reference in all states and municipalities of the country, which have been encouraging the institutions in question to register themselves for the Census by disseminating it broadly.

Albeit timid, the data shown in Tables 15 and 16 are a reference for the history of this coverage in the country. However, because the information is too dispersed, no integrated public policies could be defined for this level of education so far. One should bear in mind that the coverage rate of almost 15% for this age bracket illustrates the evolution registered in the last 10 years as a result of investments made by municipalities (often in partnership with NGOs and other civil society entities) in the opening of day-care centers.

It must also be mentioned that the integration of early childhood education into the formal educational system cannot, in what regards accreditation, supervision and teachers’ training, exempt other key players from their duty to take part in the definition of social, municipal and state policies, considering the age of the children who need health care and food supplementation. This means that social workers, health authorities, families and civil society at large must be co-responsible for the education of these children.

Only a little over 10% of all children covered by day-care programs live in rural areas, because the population in these areas is widely scattered and must cover long distances to go to day-care centers – a reality that is aggravated by difficulties to provide transportation to such young children - and also because family arrangements to take care of children represent the usual practice in these areas (Table 15).

Table 15 – Enrollments, on 25 March 1998, in day-care programs by location – Brazil and regions - 1998

Table 16 – Enrollments, on 25 March 1998, in day-care programs by type of institution – Brazil and regions - 1998

The Population Count carried out by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in 1996 provides additional data. It is now known that of the 12 million children aged 0-3, a little over 900,000 were being covered by day-care programs in that year. This is more than double the figure registered by the School Census, which represents a net rate of 7.6% in this age group. These data point to the need of a large national campaign to encourage the registration and accreditation of all public and private institutions. They also point to the need to develop a more detailed record of day-care centers based on more accurate data on the coverage they provide in our country. Just based on these data, it will be possible to follow-up and assess, in the short and medium term, the coverage being provided and to make a realistic diagnosis of costs and investment requirements in this area.

Even considering the much higher number of children revealed by the IBGE survey, there is no doubt that the day-care programs available in the Country are not at all sufficient. On the other hand, if these day-care programs are transferred to the educational sector without the corresponding transference of the funds that were invested in them by social work agencies, expanding their coverage may turn out to be a very difficult task.

In a country marked by deep economic and cultural inequalities, pre-school education, designed for children in the 4-6 age group, represents an important investment to ensure a satisfactory basic education. It is particularly important for children whose parents have no schooling and, for this reason, are not familiar with the literate and numerical culture, as is the case of a large proportion of children enrolled in primary schools in recent decades. Huge efforts have been made in this area, as shown in Table 17, which illustrates the evolution of enrollments in Brazil and its regions. The table also shows that regional disparities in pre-school education are less significant than in other education levels and that they follow regional demographic variations closely.