Beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família program have a school attendance rate of 96%.

Paulo Victor Chagas
Reporter from Agência Brasil

Brasilia - President Dilma Rousseff celebrated today (15) the survey released on the 13th that, in October and November 2013, 95,9% of public school students whose families receive Bolsa Família met the minimum school attendance requirement.

Through Twitter, the president said that attendance is higher than the average recorded by students in the public school system who are not served by the program.

According to Dilma, the data proves that the parents benefiting from the program understand that education "is the shortest path to guaranteeing a better future for their children." To remain in the program, students aged 6 to 15 must have at least 85% attendance. Young people aged 16 and 17 need to be present in at least 75% of classes.

The highest school attendance rates last year were recorded by students in the North and Northeast regions, with 97,7% and 97,5% attendance, respectively. According to the Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS), the five states with the highest school attendance rates were Amapá (99%), Maranhão (98,6%), Piauí (98,5%), Acre (98,4%), and Alagoas (98,1%).

The survey is conducted bimonthly by the Ministry of Education with support from the MDS (Ministry of Social Development) and the education departments of municipalities, states, and the Federal District. However, the data released does not refer to all students from families receiving Bolsa Família (a Brazilian social welfare program), as attendance monitoring is currently only done for 92,2% of the total number of students. In other words, of the 17,4 million beneficiary students, only 16 million had their attendance information registered.