Chilean education group Vitamina accumulates debts, lawsuits and precariousness in schools in Brazil – 08/05/2023 – Educação

The Chilean group Vitamina attracted the attention of the Brazilian educational market from 2019 onwards by starting the process of buying dozens of early childhood education schools, in a millionaire operation. Less than four years later, the operation in the country accumulates debts with suppliers, former owners and even teachers.

Since 2019, the group has bought 37 kindergarten schools (the group says there are now 36), most in the city of São Paulo. Now, there are reports of precarious service problems in many units, ranging from weakening teaching work, turnover of professionals, reduction of employees, lack of teaching and cleaning materials, lack of building maintenance and shortage of food for students.

The conditions have resulted in the loss of students at several schools. The group would be trying to sell the business, according to a report by the newspaper Valor Econômico and reports from industry sources collected by Sheet.

In a note, Vitamina denied that the business is for sale. “The group’s interest in the local market remains and we want to build a long-term project in the country”, says the text.

Some of the default cases have already ended up in court. Vitamina is the target of at least 13 lawsuits, according to a survey by the report, ranging from rent and supplier charges to defaults on former school owners. These lawsuits, pending before the São Paulo Judiciary, add up to debts of R$ 1.8 million.

The amount does not include labor liabilities also questioned in court – market sources report that the group’s total debt in the country could reach R$ 50 million. Attorney Joel Batista, a specialist in educational law, represents a group of teachers, former school owners and property owners who have not received payments.

He says that he has already filed a few dozen lawsuits against the group in favor of teachers who have not had FGTS (Service Time Guarantee Fund) installments deposited.

“I don’t know of a similar situation in this segment of elementary education. It’s strange that a millionaire economic group accumulates these problems and doesn’t even pay the FGTS of less than R$ 200 for teachers”, says the lawyer. According to him, there are plans to create a committee of creditors to deal with the problems.

Vitamina arrived in Brazil with financial support from the Peninsula, from Abílio Diniz’s family. The project was to reach more than one hundred schools in the country. Peninsula’s relationship with the group began to have problems, however, and the Brazilian investment fund withdrew from the business in the middle of last year.

In Brazil, Vitamina found a scenario of early childhood education schools facing financial difficulties due to the pandemic and school closures. As distance learning makes little sense in the early years of schooling, many parents withdrew their children from schools, leaving homeowners in a difficult situation. This facilitated acquisitions.

In Chile, the group has 69 schools also aimed at the initial years of basic education, but operates in a very particular model. Most of the students are from families of employees of partner companies, a modality that is not very common in Brazil.

Schools at this stage are generally small. This represents a challenge for networking, as predicted by the Vitamina model, according to reports from entrepreneurs in the sector.

Since mid-2021, teachers at the acquired schools began to face problems with the withdrawal of rights. The group began to change the hiring category, no longer configuring them as teachers but as educators —which creates difficulties in terms of union representation and respect for collective agreements.

This had an impact on lower wage levels and reduced vacation entitlements, for example. There are cases of payment of transport and food vouchers being paid in installments, attempts to pay severance pay in installments for resigning employees, in addition to the failure to deposit the FGTS — a situation that has been aggravated since September of last year.

There are also cases of late payment of wages, but more punctually.

Sinpro-SP (Union of Teachers of São Paulo) has limitations on union representation because of the change in the registration of professionals made by the company. However, the entity has been monitoring the teachers’ situation for at least two years and is preparing information to take to the Public Ministry of Labor.

“The union called the group to make collective agreements for all schools, but they refused. The situation started with loss of rights and then went downhill”, says the director of Sinpro-SP, Silvia Barbara. “The female teachers’ complaints go far beyond the loss of rights, there is a deterioration of the schools, they don’t have material, they don’t hire teachers”.

In one of the purchased schools, Alfa, in Pinheiros, parents got together to pay, out of the monthly fee, the hiring of a security company, due to the families’ fear of attacks on students.

One of the teachers at the unit, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said that the school faces problems with infiltration due to lack of maintenance and the frequent presence of insects, such as cockroaches and spiders. She sent photos to the report to show the situation.

Two students in his class left the school last week, aggravating the process of emptying the unit.

Another purchased school, Primeiro Passo, in Paraíso, had more than 200 students and, according to reports from employees, currently has no more than 30. In January there was a mass cancellation.

The main reasons are that Vitamina has not replaced teachers and has started to mix students from different grades in the same classrooms, without notifying parents.

With years of experience at school, a teacher said, also on condition of anonymity, that the lack of teaching materials is recurrent. The school still refuses to even print materials that professionals bring from home. According to her, teachers have already had to take over the work at the school entrance, due to lack of professionals.

Vitamina stated that the group was affected by the negative impacts of the pandemic. The company did not comment on the reported issues.

“We continue to believe that we will overcome the challenges imposed by the current scenario to fulfill our promise to deliver quality early childhood education, based on more than 16 years of proven experience”, says the note.