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TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6741
INFO RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 7862
RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 3501
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 7974
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RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 2035
RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ 3313
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0256
RUEAUSA/DEPT OF EDUCATION WASHINGTON DC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RHMFISS/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 SAO PAULO 000301 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/BSC, WHA/PDA, ECA 
NSC FOR FEARS 
DEPT OF TREASURY FOR OASIA, DAS LEE AND JHOEK 
SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
USAID FOR LAC/AA 
PARIS FOR ECON - TOM WHITE 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: SCUL SOCI PGOV ECON KPAO BR
SUBJECT: GOB UNVEILS NEW EDUCATION PLAN TO ADDRESS SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS 
 
REF: (A) BRASILIA 149; (B)SAO PAULO 10; 
     (C) SAO 06 PAULO 1038 
 
------- 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1.  Prominent commentators and politicians have increasingly 
identified deficiencies in Brazil's public education system as a 
leading cause of the country's subpar economic performance and its 
inability to keep pace with other so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, 
India, China) economies.  Recent results of standardized national 
tests tend to confirm these concerns, showing a marked decline in 
student performance over the past ten years.  Last year a group of 
civil society, private-sector, and government leaders called 
Everyone for Education (EFE) launched a new, long-term education 
initiative to press for reform of the system and realignment of 
priorities.  More recently, The Ministry of Education unveiled a 
comprehensive Plan for Educational Development (PDE), which appears 
to adopt many of EFE's priorities and to shift government priorities 
towards improving the quality of primary education.  End Summary. 
 
-------------------------------- 
TEST RESULTS CONFIRM WORST FEARS 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  Along with social inequality - or because of it - the low 
quality of primary education has long been identified as the main 
obstacle to Brazil's economic growth and development.  According to 
the Map of Illiteracy in Brazil, a research project conducted by the 
Anisio Teixera National Institute of Studies and Research on 
Education (a branch of the Ministry of Education), the country has 
16 million illiterates and 30 million "functional" illiterates 
(defined as person over the age of 15 with less than four years of 
formal schooling).  Worse yet, in February the Ministry of Education 
itself published the 2005 national exam results for elementary 
schools.  The figures showed a decline in students' performance in 
Math and Portuguese Language compared to 10 years ago, suggesting 
that, far from increasing their knowledge, Brazilian students are 
performing worse each year. 
 
¶3.  The standardized national examination, created 10 years ago, is 
given every two years by the Ministry of Education.  It includes 
tests in Mathematics and Portuguese designed to measure the 
performance of public and private school students alike.  In Brazil, 
the educational system comprises 11 years of schooling divided into 
two phases.  The first, called fundamental (primary) education, 
includes 8 years of schooling for children aged 7 to 14.  The next 
phase, consisting of three years of schooling, is called 
complementary (secondary) education and is for children aged 15 to 
¶17.  In 2006, President Lula enlarged the fundamental cycle of 
education by one year.  All children should now begin to attend 
school at age 6, a change that will be phased in over the next 
decade. 
 
¶4.  The 2005 results show that the students from the 4th grade 
(first half of fundamental education) averaged 182 in Math and 188in Portuguese on a scale from 0 to 500. According o exam standards, 
students at that level are suposed to score at least 300 in both 
exams to prov they are literate and have appropriate number skils. 
 However, the results indicate they are fallig short.  Worse yet, 
performance in 2005 shows adecline from 1995, when the average 
scores were 91 and 188 respectively. 
 
¶5.  The same disappointing picture is reflected in test scores from 
other age groups.  Students from the 8th grade at the end of the 
"fundamental" cycle averaged 239 in Math and 232 in Portuguese.  In 
1995, the scores were 253 and 256.  Finally, the 11th grade, near 
the end of complementary education, scored 271 in Math and 258 in 
Portuguese, decreasing from 282 and 290, respectively, in 10 years. 
 
SAO PAULO 00000301  002 OF 006 
 
 
 
 
¶6.  There was a little good news from the fourth-graders.  Their 
performance shows an improvement in 2005 over their 2003 results, 
when they scored 169 in Portuguese and 177 in math.  However, this 
trend was not observed among other age groups; overall scores in 
both subjects were lower in 2005 than in 2003.  In other words, 
while there may be some slight short-term improvement at the lower 
level, elementary-school students are scoring lower on standardized 
tests than they did in 1995, and secondary-school students have 
showed a steady decline, leaving little room for optimism. The 
result of this failure of the education system is that many students 
leave the schools with little or no basic reading, writing, or 
numbers skills, severely limiting their value in the workforce. 
 
--------------------------------- 
HOW WE GOT HERE - A BRIEF HISTORY 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  The problems exposed by the test results did not surprise 
experts on education. "These results just confirm what everybody who 
deals with education in Brazil already knows: the system doesn't 
work at all," said Professor Sergio Haddad, president of the NGO 
Educational Action. "What strikes us is why this situation has 
stayed the same for so long."  Professor Haddad believes that the 
federal government in recent years has been focused on getting 
children into the schools rather than on improving the quality of 
education.  In large part because of the priority placed on access 
to education, almost 100 percent of school-aged children are 
enrolled in elementary schools, a major advance over thirty years 
ago.  Until the 1970s, the majority of public school students were 
from middle-class families, and poor children were largely excluded. 
 The quality of education was excellent in those days.  However, 
things began to change in the late 70s and early 80s.  Public 
schools began slowly to receive students from the lower economic and 
social classes, increasing class size.  Middle-class families 
started sending their children to private schools.  This phenomenon 
became widespread in Brazil and stimulated a boom in private 
education for middle-class students.  At the same time, several 
local and state governments implemented programs to encourage poor 
families to send their children to public schools, particularly in 
rural areas. 
 
¶8.  The "Bolsa Familia" conditional cash transfer program (ref B), 
for instance, was initiated under President Fernando Henrique 
Cardoso (1995-2003) with the name Bolsa Escola as an incentive to 
increase school attendance in poor families.  According to many 
experts, the increase in attendance adversely impacted the quality 
of education because there was insufficient funding and 
administrative infrastructure to train more teachers, build new 
facilities, and respond to an educational clientele with special 
needs.  Many of the new students came from dysfunctional families 
and/or violent neighborhoods.  The overall educational strategy gave 
priority to quantity over quality.   Bad education was deemed better 
than no education at all. 
 
----------------- 
LACK OF DEMAND... 
----------------- 
 
¶9.  Professors and experts on education say that the inclusion of 
poor children in the educational system is no longer an excuse for 
providing bad education.  Professor Claudio Moura Castro, former 
head of education policy at the Inter-American Development Bank and 
one of Brazil's foremost education experts, believes that investment 
in good education lacks political appeal to the federal government 
in Brazil.  He cited a 2006 survey of public views on education in 
Brazil.  The results are surprising.  The poll, conducted by the 
Brazilian Institute of Popular Opinion and Statistics (IBOPE), shows 
education ranked 7th among the Brazilian people's worries, after 
health care, jobs, hunger, public safety, corruption and drugs. The 
 
SAO PAULO 00000301  003 OF 006 
 
 
survey also shows that public appreciation of education varies from 
one level to another across the economic and social spectrum. 
People from the lower classes - who are generally less educated - 
tend to believe that the quality of education is good or improving, 
while the more educated sectors of the population are much more 
critical.   "The Lula government was re-elected by the less educated 
voters and, for them, there's no problem in the educational system," 
opined Professor Moura.  "Therefore, this government has no 
political reason to provide a better education" and does not treat 
it as a priority. 
 
-------------------- 
...AND LACK OF FOCUS 
-------------------- 
 
¶10.  During Lula's first term, the federal government went through 
several different Ministers of Education and developed no clear 
policy.  Cristovam Buarque, a former Governor of the Federal 
District (Brasilia), a 2006 presidential candidate, and now a 
senator from the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), gave priority to 
adult education.  His successor, Tarso Genro, now Minister of 
Justice, devoted attention and resources to the higher education 
system.  After Genro left in 2005, Fernando Haddad continued his 
policy of concentrating on improving universities.  His priority was 
to get more students from the lower economic and social classes into 
the universities.  He designed federal programs to offer loans to 
poor students and provide tax exemptions to private universities 
that accepted them.  The Ministry also implemented quotas in public 
universities for poor and Afro-Brazilian students.  Those 
initiatives were praised by education experts as good tools for 
bringing poor students into the system, but few believed that they 
would improve overall education quality. 
 
¶11.  The real problem in the eyes of many observers was a poorly 
defined or even misguided education policy focus.  While the 
government was seeking to help higher education students, many 
protested that fundamental education needed more attention.  In 
September 2006, a group of professors, experts, and private-sector 
leaders founded a movement called Todos pela Educacao (Everybody for 
Education - see ref C) to demand a policy shift towards primary 
education.  It identified five main objectives to be achieved by 
2022, when Brazil celebrates the bicentennial of its independence. 
"This group is an important tool to press the government," says 
Professor Maria do Carmo Brant de Carvalho, general coordinator of 
the Center for Studies and Research on Education, Culture and Common 
Action (CENPEC).  She considers the group very effective and noted 
that the new program recently unveiled by the Lula administration 
appears to be consistent with the direction suggested by the 
movement. 
 
-------------------------- 
ROLE OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR 
-------------------------- 
 
¶12.  The private sector's role in education, health and social 
services in Brazil is significant.  Private schools account for a 
significant percentage of enrolled students, especially in secondary 
schools and universities.  Private sector associations, business 
confederations and multinational companies have been involved for 
some time in efforts to train a more qualified industrial workforce. 
 The quality of available jobs in Brazil is generally low, as 
illustrated by low pay, low productivity growth, high turnover, a 
significant decline in the number of jobs in industry, and the high 
percentage of jobs in the informal economy.  To address this 
situation, programs have been created to provide education, 
technical know-how, and expertise in information technology to their 
workers as part of a process to restructure and modernize Brazilian 
companies to be competitive in today's global market. 
 
¶13.  For example, the Sao Paulo state Federation of Industries 
(FIESP) operates the National Industrial Apprenticeship Service 
 
SAO PAULO 00000301  004 OF 006 
 
 
(SENAI) to train young professionals for the industrial sector. 
SENAI is an educational organization for training, development, and 
specialization of both semi-skilled and technically trained 
woerkers.  Both SENAI and a related organization, the Industry 
Social Service (SESI), are funded by mandatory monthly contributions 
collected by the government from industrial companies and passed to 
FIESP.  SESI is a nationwide organization created to provide 
supplementary health and education services to workers and their 
families.  The largest private organization in terms of schools and 
students, SESI has 600,000 students enrolled this year in a wide 
variety of classes.  Another example is the National Center for 
Commercial Education (SENAC), which trains workers in trade-related 
areas 
 
¶14.  The Bradesco Foundation, operated by Bradesco Bank, is one of 
the oldest institutions in Brazil focused on basic education.  It 
has 40 schools and more than 100,000 students nationwide. 
Individual companies have developed Corporate Social Responsibility 
(CSR) programs to provide education.  Some have created foundations 
for this purpose, while others prefer to sponsor programs developed 
by independent NGOs. 
 
¶15.  There are several independent NGOs working in Brazil to improve 
the quality of education.  Prominent among these is the Ayrton Senna 
Institute - established by the family of the late race-car driver - 
whose programs have already reached almost seven thousand 
under-privileged children and young adults in the country. 
Likewise, the Fernand Braudel Institute of World Economics operates 
Reading Circles for at-risk youths in metropolitan Sao Paulo. 
However, all these combined efforts, while encouraging, have not 
been enough by themselves to turn the situation around.  For this 
reason, the Everybody for Education movement was launched last year 
to coordinate civil society and private sector efforts to press 
government and society as a whole for a better education system. 
 
------------------------------------ 
THE PLAN FOR EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶16.  In early March, Minister of Education Fernando Haddad (no 
relation to Professor Sergio Haddad) launched a plan focused on 
education quality, informally referred to as "the PAC for education" 
in reference to President Lula's overall economic plan, the Growth 
Acceleration Program (PAC).  The official name of Haddad's proposal 
is the Plan for Educational Development (PDE).  It includes some 50 
items to be implemented over the next four years, among them being 
early (age 6-8) literacy testing, higher minimum teacher salaries, 
more computers and better transportation, extension of the "Bolsa 
Familia" maximum eligibility age from 15 to 17, and financial 
incentives for school districts that improve their results.  The 
initiative earned the plaudits of experts, academics, businessmen 
and even opposition political parties because, as they explain, this 
is the first time that the government has shown a pragmatic interest 
in improving the quality of education instead of merely increasing 
the number of students in the schools.  Paulo Renato Souza, who 
served as Education Minister under President Cardoso and is often 
critical of the Lula administration, praised the PDE as positive and 
long-overdue while noting that much will depend on how well it is 
implemented. 
 
¶17.  The program is still something of a work in progress.  Minister 
Haddad announced its main components without providing details and 
is expected to present the final, comprehensive version sometime in 
April.  In general terms, the Ministry proposes to distribute 8 
billion Reals (about USD 4 billion) over four years to those cities 
where the students and teachers are found to be performing better. 
As things stand now, funds are distributed proportionally based on 
the number of students enrolled in each school.  In order to 
implement this change, the government will establish goals for 
educational performance and ways to measure it.  "The government 
finally accepted the idea of evaluation based on merit," said 
 
SAO PAULO 00000301  005 OF 006 
 
 
CENPEC's Professor Brant. 
 
¶18.  Experts note with approval that the new plan also embraces the 
idea of decentralization, since the goals will be set locally 
through agreements between the Ministry of Education and municipal 
governments.  "Parents and the community would be able to work with 
teachers to design the goals and identify how to get there, 
Professor Brant explained.  This would also mark the first time that 
the government accepts inputs from people outside the formal 
education system, she commented.  Finally, the plan calls for 
children to be tested early on (between the ages of about 6 and 8) 
to help provide an early indication whether the system is working. 
If not, there would still be time to correct it. 
 
¶19.  This is a long-term plan.  According to Minister Haddad, its 
results will become visible in about 14 years. In other words, the 
government recognizes that it will take the better part of a 
generation to improve the quality of education in Brazil. 
 
¶20.  The PDE remains at this point a bundle of good intentions, 
because the money is not guaranteed.  The Ministry of Education can 
currently count on only 500 million Reals (USD 250 million) out of 
the requisite 8 billion Reals (USD 4 billion).  Furthermore, 
implementation itself will be a big challenge.  Brazil has three 
different educational systems, each with its own attributes, 
functions, and responsibilities.  Local governments and state 
governments are both responsible for fundamental schools but each 
government has it own separate system. Besides that, municipalities 
run the childhood education while the states are in charge of the 
three last years of schooling (complementary education), and the 
federal government is in charge of the higher education.  The states 
are responsible for some institutions of higher learning as well. 
The three levels of government, far from working well together to 
ensure a consistent product, devote much of their attention to 
competing for funding. 
 
¶21.  The money for the basic system comes from the Fund for 
Maintenance and Development of Basic Education (FUNDEB), which is 
expected to have 2 billion Reals to spend in 2007.  Created last 
year to replace an earlier program, FUNDEB is not yet fully 
implemented.  Though the sources of funding have been identified, 
the government has not established how the money will be distributed 
among the different levels of education. This is money that local 
and state governments are fighting over. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
STATE TO PUSH FOR TEACHER TRAINING AND EVALUATION 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶22.  Acting CG met April 5 with Sao Paulo State Secretary of 
Education Maria Lucia Marcondes Carvalho Vasconcelos, who said 
Minister Haddad's PDE is a good initiative because of its focus on 
quality.  In her view, the current education system is clearly not 
working and needs to be fundamentally changed.  The key to 
improvement, she said, is to train teachers and regularly monitor 
and measure their classroom performance.  She also cited the need to 
test students more frequently; in Sao Paulo, elementary school 
students progress from one year to the next without having to 
demonstrate their proficiency.  Secretary Vasconcelos identified 
addressing these issues as her top priority. 
 
¶23.  Vasconcelos said Sao Paulo Governor Jose Serra is also pushing 
to improve the quality of instruction in the state education system. 
 He is willing, if necessary, to confront the teachers' and school 
employees' unions in order to implement merit evaluations.  Given 
that the local education unions are influenced by President Lula's 
Workers Party (PT), they are expected to mount resistance to any 
change.  Nevertheless, Vasconcelos believes Governor Serra is 
genuinely committed to bringing about change and will ultimately 
prevail. 
 
 
SAO PAULO 00000301  006 OF 006 
 
 
------------------------------------ 
MISSION SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶24.  The U.S. Mission in Brazil works closely with the Brazilian 
Ministry of Education and the State Secretaries of Education to 
foster good management and leadership in the public schools in 
Brazil.  Following an Embassy-sponsored Voluntary Visitor exchange 
visit to the U.S. a few years ago, members of CONSED (Council of 
State Secretaries of Education) instituted a National Prize for 
excellence in school management and leadership, loosely based on 
similar awards for school excellence they learned of in the U.S.  As 
an added incentive for good school management, the Embassy organized 
an annual principals' exchange program in which each year's 
award-winning school principals from each of the states and the 
Federal District are offered a 10-day trip to the U.S. to observe 
U.S. public schools and interact with U.S. school principals.  The 
exchange is two-way, as award-winning American school principals are 
brought to Brazil to visit award-winning Brazilian public schools, 
as well.   The principals' exchange also results in the distribution 
of a publication on "Best Practices in School Management and 
Leadership" which is annually distributed to all public schools in 
Brazil. 
 
¶25.  Through its Youth Ambassadors program, the Mission, in 
partnership with public and private organizations in both countries, 
annually gives recognition to 20-25 outstanding, economically 
disadvantaged public school students from throughout Brazil who 
speak English and are involved in social responsibility initiatives 
in their communities.  Now in its sixth year, the Youth Ambassadors 
program gives these students the opportunity to participate in a 
two-week exchange program in the United States.  More than 10 Youth 
Ambassador alumni have since won substantial four-year scholarships 
to U.S. colleges and universities, including the University of 
Chicago, Smith, and Mount Holyoke. 
 
¶26.  Thus, although there are serious problems with Brazil's public 
education system, the Mission's public diplomacy programs indicate 
that there are nonetheless pockets of excellence, and highly 
motivated administrators, teachers and students in the system. 
 
------- 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶27.  Education in Brazil is something of a political football.  As 
President Lula was contemplating his post-re-election Cabinet 
shuffle, influential members of his Workers Party (PT) urged him to 
make Marta Suplicy the next Education Minister based on her record 
as Mayor of Sao Paulo (2001-04) and in the hopes of enhancing her 
chances to be elected Mayor again in 2008 and to aspire to the 
Presidency in 2010.  Intentionally or otherwise, Minister Haddad 
foiled those plans by presenting the PDE and demonstrating himself 
to be a serious, competent administrator with some practical ideas 
that happen to coincide with the recommendations of outside groups. 
Lula had no choice but to keep him in the Cabinet to refine and 
implement the PDE, and Marta Suplicy ended up as Minister of 
Tourism.  Time will tell how much of the Plan is ultimately funded 
and implemented, and there is plenty of room for skepticism, but the 
fact that the federal government appears to understand the 
seriousness of the situation and to want to try to fix it is in 
itself encouraging.  End Comment. 
 
¶28.  This cable was coordinated with Embassy Brasilia. 
 
MCMULLEN