Aécio and Dilma finally agree: 100% of royalties for education.
A potential opponent of Dilma Rousseff from the PSDB party in the 2014 elections has shown support for the president's project regarding the resources from pre-salt oil exploration, stating that the cause deserves cross-party support and the approval of public opinion.
247 – Senator Aécio Neves, a member of the PSDB party, who intensified his criticism of Dilma Rousseff's government while running for president, is now showing himself to be an ally of the president in the project that allocates oil royalties to education. Read more:
A new leap
The exclusive allocation of resources from pre-salt oil exploration to Brazilian education is one of the rare points of consensus currently being built in the country.
This cause deserves cross-party support and the endorsement of public opinion so that the country can resist the temptation to simultaneously address its multiple deficits, or the traditional pragmatism of the Brazilian state.
We have approximately 1 million children without a place in preschool and 3,6 million children and young people not attending school, according to the NGO.
Everyone for Education. In the early years of elementary school, 35% of students fail to complete their studies. In high school, that figure is 49%. And a large proportion of those who do reach the end of the cycles do so poorly, with low performance in basic subjects.
The average schooling in Brazil (UNDP), at 7,2 years, remained stagnant between 2011 and 2013. This number is the lowest, along with Suriname, among South American countries. This position was contested by the Ministry of Education. Even so, if another figure prevailed, as the government wants, little would change the Brazilian reality.
The challenge in education is not limited to increasing resources, although these are fundamental. There is a long road ahead in revising and modernizing curricula, improving the quality of teaching, enhancing teacher qualifications and salaries, improving assessment systems, and converging efforts across all three levels of government.
The logic of imposing new obligations on federated entities is exhausted by the reality of states engulfed in unpayable debts and the penury of municipalities.
On the other hand, there is no reasonable justification for the federal government's contribution to education representing only about a third of total spending in the sector, while states and municipalities bear the brunt of it.
The truth is that we could have made more progress already. The recent and correct federal initiative to encourage a pact for literacy at the right age comes long overdue.
In the last ten years, for example, Minas Gerais was the first Brazilian state to universalize nine-year primary education.
Investing in the quality of learning in the early years of basic education has already yielded results: today, 88% of eight-year-old students enrolled in the state public school system can already read and write correctly. In the IDEB (Basic Education Development Index), Minas Gerais ranks first in these grades and was the only state to achieve an index of 6, comparable to developed countries, despite being the state with the largest number of municipalities and having significant regional differences.
The field of education is yet another example that transforming reality requires not only resources, but also efficient management and a commitment to results.