Financing basic education and racial equity – 02/15/2023 – Cida Bento

Professor Zara Figueiredo Tripodi, head of Secadi (Secretary of Continuing Education, Literacy, Diversity and Inclusion), of the Ministry of Education, received the Technical Note Conditionalities from Vaar/Fundeb, last Thursday (9). The document is the result of a broad debate carried out with researchers, academic entities and black organizations from different regions of the country.

It was prepared jointly by Nepppe/Ufop (Center for Studies and Research in Public Education Policies at the Federal University of Ouro Preto) and by Anansi/Ceert (Observatory of Racial Equity in Basic Education).

This technical note, whose main focus is the effective reduction of socioeconomic and racial inequalities in basic education, had already been presented and discussed in the federal government’s education transition group, receiving broad support.

The note points to the new Fundeb (Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education) as a legal provision that promotes advances in basic education, among other factors, by making the Union’s participation in the financing fund permanent and more redistributive, gradually increasing the transfer to federated entities.

This increase in the transfer of funds to states and municipalities will increase from 12% in 2021 to 23% by 2026. From then on, it will continue on a permanent basis.

The note emphasizes racial inequality distinctly from economic inequality, as a challenge to be faced in order to achieve systemic quality in basic education.

Complementation-Vaar (Value Student Year Result) is one of the criteria for transferring resources to municipalities established by the new Fundeb and deals with the reduction of educational inequalities motivated by socioeconomic and racial factors.

The technical note considers this conditionality to be important as it places socioeconomic and racial inequalities as a condition for achieving systemic quality in basic education. It also makes it possible to have an impact through public debate on the quality of learning indicators that are able to measure with methodological rigor the inequalities in school performance between socioeconomic groups and by color/race.

Even acknowledging the existence of advances, the technical note makes suggestions aimed at improving the IDERaca (Racial Performance Difference Index), which was designed within the scope of the Intergovernmental Commission for Financing for Quality Basic Education.

The note observes that, “both in the case of socioeconomic inequalities and in the case of racial inequalities, the measure works with standardized averages of Saeb students”. And that the use of averages in the index does not contribute to the qualified debate around equity, since it hides “the inequalities inherent to social groups instead of seeking to correct them”.

The civil society entities that signed the technical note understand that if the index favors the analysis of inequalities to the detriment of average income, it can lead to actions that truly promote equity in learning.

In this way, the incentive provided by the Vaar-completion will fulfill its function of reducing socioeconomic and racial inequalities in the education networks.

This is how the “right to education with guaranteed quality standards implies not only access to the school system but effective learning for all students”.

The document was delivered personally by this columnist, by Professor Billy Malachias and by Professor Marly Silveira (UnB), both education consultants at Ceert. Fundeb technicians and the president of the FNDE (National Fund for the Development of Education), Fernanda Pacobahyba, also participated in the meeting.

Now it is necessary to move on to the refinement and implementation of the policy. Let’s do it!

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