Survivor for education confronts Brazilian ignorance – 07/10/2023 – Michael França

In 2017, during the 15th edition of the Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty (Flip), a 77-year-old lady who was sitting in the audience drew attention at the event through her moving speech that highlighted the value of education and the challenges of racism.

“I am a survivor through education. With all the prejudice and with all things, I won”, said Diva Guimarães, who is a retired teacher, granddaughter of a slave and daughter of a washerwoman. Then, she adds: “Sometimes, I even got hit without knowing it. It marked my life profoundly”.

Through a speech of approximately 13 minutes, Guimarães became the big star of Flip that year. With a profound denunciation of all the barriers she had to overcome in order to educate herself, she moved viewers and actor Lázaro Ramos alike. Video of her on the internet had thousands of views.

Although it is common to have some commotion with statements of this type, education and inclusion do not seem to be ingrained values ​​in our society. This is reflected in school performance. A quick look at the data reveals how far we need to go in terms of improving our education system.

For the children who still go to school in Brazil, the results in terms of learning are usually poor. Specialized studies in the area show that, although we have made considerable progress in the 5th year of elementary school, the advances in the 9th year and in secondary education are not encouraging when we analyze the average performance and, in particular, when we take into account the racial aspect.

In a study carried out within the scope of the Nucleus of Racial Studies at Insper, researchers Gerrio Barbosa and Alysson Portella and I showed that, in practically all Brazilian states, we made progress in the average performance in the 5th and 9th grades of elementary school, but with a worsening of the racial gap. That is, the difference between the average performance of whites and blacks in public education increased (“Racial inequality in basic education”, 2023).

Even in Ceará and Pernambuco, which are seen as success stories because they are relatively poor states that have achieved significant educational progress in recent decades, the racial gap has widened significantly.

In several states, mainly those in the North and Northeast regions, pardos fared better than whites. However, there was a reversal over time. In the case of blacks, the scenario is much worse. This was already the group with the lowest average performance and, in the period between 2007 and 2019, the gap in relation to both whites and browns increased significantly. The states of Santa Cantarina and Rio Grande do Sul stand out as those with the greatest performance gap for blacks in the 9th grade of elementary school.

Although this draws attention, it is important to highlight that even in the case of whites the performance is far from ideal. A relatively small percentage of them managed to reach the Proficient and Advanced levels of learning in public education.

We must also remember that many children drop out of school. The school dropout rate in the country is extremely high. According to IBGE data, lack of interest, the need to work and pregnancy are the main reasons why we have this high school dropout rate.

These numbers light up yet another warning sign for Brazilian society. In a scenario of considerable technological progress, it will be difficult for the labor market to absorb so many people with a low educational level in the coming years.

In this context, if the objective is to stop being a society full of ignorant people, we will need to wake up to the fact that education goes beyond the walls of schools. It is the result of a collective construction.

*The text is a tribute to the song “Papo de Jacaré”, by Rivanil Jesus and Carlinhos Santos, performed by POBOX.

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