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Girls
Move to Head of the Class in Brazil
By Mario Osava, Inter Press Service |
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 RIO
DE JANEIRO, Mar 24 (IPS) - Brazil has some excellent results
to present before the World Education Forum, in April, especially
when it comes to female education over the last decade. Girls
have raced ahead of boys in school attendance and literacy rates.
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| Until
the late 1980s, boys stayed longer in school - a situation that
reversed in the 1990-1996 period. The average time spent in
school by female students grew from 4.9 to six years, while
males saw a moderate increase from 5.1 to 5.7 years. |
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| Illiteracy,
which tends to be disproportionately higher among > women, runs
at 9.4 percent among Brazilian women between 30 and > 39 years,
but drops to 4 percent for the 15 to 19 age group. For > men
in the same age groups, the rates are 11 percent and 7.9 > percent,
respectively. |
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The
Ministry of Education explains that the entry of women in
the labour market and the widespread wage discrimination they
face has pushed women to study harder. In addition, child
labour hurts boys more than girls as young males are more
likely to engage in economic activities that impede school
attendance.
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| Increasing
school attendance ''is permitting women to gradually but continuously
reduce gender-based salary differences and occupy important
posts in work and politics,'' observes Maria Helena Guimaraes
de Castro, president of Brazil's National Education Research
Institute. |
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| This
is an important phenomenon because more than one third of Brazilian
families are headed by women, added Guimaraes de Castro, who
is co-ordinating her country's preparations for the World Forum
in Dakar, from April 26 to 28. |
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| The
report Brazil will present there also underscores the near universal-access
to basic education, reflecting the nation's compliance with
the goal of ''Education for All'' adopted by the 1990 World
Conference in Jomtien, Thailand. |
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| Last
year in Brazil, 95.4 percent of the child population aged seven
to 14 attended school -- compared to 86.1 percent in 1991 --
surpassing the goal of 94 percent the government set for 2003.
But a million children are still out of the educational system.
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| A
major reduction in illiteracy among the population over age
15, from 20.1 percent in 1991 to 13.8 percent in 1998, is another
positive result, even if it does not quite meet the goal of
reducing the 1991 level by half. |
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The advances are ''extraordinary'' and are the result of government-led
policies, such as the 'All Children in School' programme and
increased teacher salaries in poverty-stricken areas, said Dulce
Borges, education co-ordinator of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Brazil. |
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| ''In
five years Brazil would be able to achieve the level of industrialised
countries,'' ventured the UNESCO official, but she acknowledged
obstacles such as the high rate of grade repetition among children
and the lack of attention to illiterate adolescents and adults. |
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| The
prioritisation of the child, the reform of the educational system
and other initiatives -- such as scholarships that allow low-income
families to keep their children in school -- ''are on the right
track,'' and will eventually allow the nation to attend to its
other needs, said Borges. |
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| ''Brazil
is among the most rapidly advancing countries, even > more than
Argentina'' in expanding school attendance and > implementing
measures to improve educational quality, agreed Argentina's
Education Minister Juan Jos Llach, during a visit last month. |
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| Brazil
is part of the E-9, the nine countries that comprise 70 percent
of the world's illiterate people and half the global population.
The E-9 met early last month in Recife, in Brazil's northeast,
to evaluate each nation's educational performance and to discuss
their common goals. |
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| Though
each of the nine suffers high illiteracy rates, their situations
are quite different. Rates in Brazil, China, Indonesia and Mexico
range between 10 and 20 percent, while Bangladesh, Egypt, India,
Nigeria and Pakistan report rates higher than 40 percent. |
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| Because
of these major differences, Brazil will propose dissolving the
E-9, announced Guimaraes de Castro, though she acknowledged
that the group has great influence over educational policies
implemented within the member countries. |
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| ''Each
country must define its own priorities because the problems
are very diverse. In Brazil, for example, the gender differences
in educational indicators do not reach the extremes of Egypt,
India or Pakistan,'' she said. But Brazil's authorities admit
they have much to do. Grade repetition means students average
11 years to finish an eight-year primary school education. |
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| The
nation spends 4.8 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on education,
a level similar to industrialised countries, but it is not equally
distributed and ultimately contributes to greater social inequalities. |
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| Brazil's
annual expenditure per primary school student is 12.8 times
less than for its university students, compared to a mere three-fold
difference in the United States and nearly on-par with expenditures
in other industrialised countries. |
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| This
article is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced
provided that Inter Press Service is credited. |
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