MEC plans BRL 800 million for literacy pact – 05/22/2023 – Education

The new pact for literacy, placed as a priority by the Lula government (PT), will focus on the actions of the states in relation to municipalities, in collaborative instances of governance and in the role of evaluations, according to the plan obtained by the Sheet. The performance of universities was left out of the project.

In addition to changes in the distribution of resources based on literacy results, the MEC (Ministry of Education) plans to invest R$ 800 million this year. The value is less than the R$ 2 billion of the literacy pact launched in 2012 by the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government, emptied from the Michel Temer (MDB) government.

Another different thing is that the participation of universities, which had a central role in the previous pact, will depend on the choice of each municipality or state. This has provoked criticism.

The foreseen teacher training and preparation of didactic materials will be decentralized, taking into account only MEC guidelines. The folder must accredit eligible materials and training for the project.

Launching a new literacy pact was one of the government’s promises for the first 100 days, which did not happen. Named Compromisso Criança Alfabetizada, the general lines of the study are being discussed with representatives of the Departments of Education and specialists. The launch should take place soon.

For Professor Elaine Constant, from the Faculty of Education at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), the first contact with the MEC plan inspires concern for the lack of pedagogical and literacy concepts that will guide the program. She says it is strange that the universities, which accumulate knowledge and experience, were not considered in the initial design of the project, either in the conception or for teacher training.

“When you give up university, there is a risk of sending the message that you don’t need knowledge to teach literacy, that anything, any material is worth it”, he says. “There is a technical structure, but who is in charge of teaching?” he asks.

The Commitment focuses on children in the 1st and 2nd years of elementary school, around 4 million students. In the 2021 federal assessment, the results of the 2nd year were the worst in all basic education; international test applied in the same year shows Brazil among the last placed among 65 participating countries and regions.

But the program also foresees learning recovery actions for the approximately 10.5 million students between the 3rd and 5th year. An attempt to combat the damage caused by the pandemic.

The Commitment is inspired by the model of Ceará, a state that created the PAIC (Literacy Pact at the Right Age) in 2007 and today has the best results in the country. Minister Camilo Santana was governor of Ceará, and the portfolio’s executive secretary, Izolda Cela, ran the Education portfolio.

One of the main aspects of the PAIC was the work of the state secretary of Education in collaboration with municipalities, which concentrate enrollment in the stage — teacher training and teaching materials, for example, were centralized in the state government. The MEC program invests in a similar management architecture.

The MEC will carry out the national coordination, and there will be the creation of state and regional coordinations (management and pedagogical), in addition to those responsible for each city.

Implementation will depend on the adherence of states and municipalities and, according to reports from senior MEC officials, the government is betting on a strong mobilization. But there may be difficulties in this regard, since at least 15 states have literacy projects to work with municipalities. The idea is that the Commitment can run in a hybrid way with ongoing initiatives.

Questioned, the MEC did not respond to questions about the new program.

Sociologist Cesar Callegari was MEC’s ​​Secretary of Basic Education when the 2012 literacy pact was launched. He says it is worrying to throw all the chips at state and municipal departments, since many “have neglected literacy policies, as the data show”.

“Next year there are municipal elections, and thousands of secretaries will be changed. There is a very high level of instability and heterogeneity”, he says.

For Callegari, universities have the potential to be a defense for a long-term policy.

“University institutions, in addition to being more stable, are repositories of the safest literacy knowledge, of concepts that are more than reading and writing training, but training to read and understand what you are reading”. He says he fears that municipalities will choose “off-the-shelf solutions” in terms of materials and training.

In the previous pact, 41 public universities participated in the program with the formulation of material and training. There were records of institutions with problems in this performance, and others with greater success.

As a financial incentive, the MEC is planning changes to Fundeb (the main financing mechanism for basic education) so that performance and equity in literacy are criteria for transferring funds. There are also plans to encourage states to place the issue as one of the criteria for distributing ICMS to municipalities —the new Fundeb required states to create laws in which educational results were taken into account in the apportionment of this tax.

The MEC plans to create an award for education departments and encourage states to create awards for good practices in school management and partnerships between schools.

Such as Sheet showed in January, MEC plans annual literacy assessment. There are also plans for a reading fluency assessment. Along the same lines, states should create quarterly formative tests.

Actions such as works in schools and the purchase of books to be placed in classrooms are also part of the plan. These are the so-called Reading Corner, which existed in the 2012 pact and which should consume part of the resources provided for the Commitment.