Secondary education can increase young people’s income by 32% – 12/01/2023 – Laura Machado

The new secondary education expanded the debate on professional and technological education by bringing it as one of the alternatives in the new training itineraries. Students who choose this path will receive, at the end of basic education, a vocational training diploma and a high school diploma.

The evasion of a portion of young people results from the lack of a clear meaning of what is being taught and how this content will transform their lives. Some exposure to professional and technological topics can give concreteness to the curriculum and motivate them, which would prevent them from dropping out of school.

It is expected that technical education will not only increase employability and remuneration, but also promote students’ self-care, which can result in improvements in health, personal and social relationships, and greater political and community protagonism. There is an expectation of a substantial impact on the quality of life of those with technical education and greater development in the societies that invest in it.

This potential of EPT (Professional and Technological Education) is relevant in the Brazilian context, which stands out for the low participation of students in the modality.

The 2020 “Education at a Glance” report, prepared by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), shows that the percentage of those enrolled in professional education programs reaches 42% in OECD countries. In Brazil, it does not reach 11%. There is a lot of room for the dissemination of EPT and the new secondary education will, in part, fill this gap.

A study launched this week by Insper carried out a systematic review of the literature on Brazil and estimates the private impact of secondary-level professional and technological education on employability and remuneration. The analysis of 76 projections, present in 16 carefully selected studies, corroborates the relevance of secondary-level technical training for insertion into work and increasing workers’ income.

The results found indicate that this educational program increases the present value of the remuneration of its graduates by R$ 137 thousand (32%) through an increase in the occupancy rate (R$ 51 thousand) and remuneration (R$ 86 thousand). As the cost of this modality is around R$ 16 thousand, public policy has a cost-benefit ratio of 1 to 8.6, that is, for every real spent, the young person will receive 8.6 in return if they complete the course . This result is effective for those who complete technical education, currently only 40%.

The conclusion suggests recommendations for public policy. The first is the importance of communicating to young people that this type of teaching has a significant impact on their future. Do young people know that studying technical education will have a 32% impact on their salary? The second is the urgent need to increase the supply of the modality. Another important recommendation is the integration of technical education with higher education.

Ideally, those who have a technical course should find it easier and less expensive to acquire higher education in the same area. For example, technical level courses could allow for exemption from higher level courses or guarantee additional credits. Technical course graduates already have a series of skills that would exempt them from several higher-level subjects or would require reduced effort.

In short, there is an urgent need to increase the supply and engagement of young people in secondary technical education. We are late in thinking about a curricular policy for the transition from high school to technical colleges and a more modular and fluid higher education. We only have to win.

The monetary return of EPTNM throughout the graduate’s professional life

Stage	Impact % of EPTNM	Monetary increase from EPTNM	Values
Present value of labor income of young people with complete basic education, without higher education	–	–	R$427 thousand
Present value of the labor income of young people who completed technical education, considering only the impact on the employment rate	12%	R$51 thousand	R$478 thousand
Present value of the labor income of young people who completed technical education, considering only the impact on remuneration	18%	R$77 thousand	R$504 thousand
Present value of the labor income of young people who completed technical education, considering the impact on the employment rate and remuneration	32%	R$ 137 thousand	R$564 thousand

LINK PRESENT: Did you like this text? Subscribers can access five free accesses from any link per day. Just click the blue F below.