Image: Matt Collins
Less than a quarter of a century after emerging from a military dictatorship, Brazilians have built a stable and vibrant democracy in which more than 80 million voters freely decide the future of their beloved country in each and every election. Lately, by becoming a world leader in food production, spearheading the search for biofuels as a new source of renewable energy and seeking ways to grow its economy while still protecting its unique natural ecosystems, Brazil has started to address a broad range of difficult and unavoidable issues that currently challenge most developing nations worldwide.
Brazil had to work arduously during the past decade to achieve its present economic stability and prosperity. Yet at this crucial juncture of its history, the country faces the daunting task of translating its political and economic stability into social policies and programs that can improve, at long last, the quality of life for millions of Brazilians who, until very recently, would have had no hope of sharing in the country’s enormous wealth. But how do you empower millions of citizens, particularly young people, to become true participants in a global society that is continuously changing at a stunning pace as a result of the never-ending incorporation of new knowledge and technologies?
The answer is straightforward: systemic high-quality education, disseminated to reach the entire territory, including the most remote and impoverished communities of this vast country, so that all Brazilians can acquire the means to become creative and critical thinkers, capable of developing their own opinions and becoming true contributors to solve the challenges involved in constructing a fair and democratic society.
Three tenets serve as the main foundations of the Brazilian Plan for the Development of Education (PDE): systemic, territorial and empowering education. Enacted by the current administration, this plan outlines a broad range of executive measures aimed at rescuing the quality, reach and long-term impact of the Brazilian education system.
In addition to promoting actions to improve the basic training of teachers, to establish a national evaluation system, and to define the basis for a close collaboration between the federal government and the states and municipal authorities, the PDE provides, from its fourth year on, an extra 19 billion reals (US$10,633,535,000) earmarked for education.
The PDE also enacts new directives and guidelines for the creation of the Federal Institutes for Education, Science and Technology (IFET in Portuguese), which will result in the establishment of a network of 354 institutes dedicated to teaching science and technology to high schoolers and training thousands of new teachers in the public education system.
Inspired by the example set by Alberto Santos-Dumont, the great Brazilian inventor and aviator, who in 1901 became the first man to fly a controllable airship powered by an engine, a group of Brazilian scientists decided in 2003 to establish, in the city of Natal, in the northeast of Brazil, a research institute dedicated to using the production of state-of-the-art science as an agent of social and economic transformation for one of the least developed regions of the country [see “Building a Future on Science,” by Christine Soares, on page 80]. Among its social initiatives, the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience of Natal (ELS-IINN) has established a science education program that today reaches 1,000 children enrolled in one of the poorest performing public education districts in Brazil.
By bringing their vision, efforts and experience together, the Brazilian government, through the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, and the ELS-IINN have partnered to establish the Natal Campus of the Brain and to use this multidisciplinary, scientific-social initiative to launch the Alberto Santos-Dumont Science Education Program for Children. The goal of this initiative is to enroll one million children from the public school system nationwide in the most comprehensive science and technology education program in Brazilian history.
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12 Comments
Add CommentI am just back from Brazil, in Rio, to be a street sweeper you have to have a high school education. People leave the country side because there is no development. they import olives when they could grow very easily in Brazil. The middle class is educated - they don't have enough places in schools for the poor - this article is a day dream. Tech is needed - but basic development of the countryside is essential.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConstance Blackwell,
It is a shame to see a prestigious magazine like this allowing a piece of pure propaganda to be published, mainly bearing the signature of one of the authors who is famous for being totally illeterate in English and nearly uncapable of speaking his native Portuguese. Perhaps one should really go to Brazil to see why the country is ranked one of the most corrupt in the country and all the other problems the real population has to face.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a perfect example of how brazilian elite thinks about their president. Does It sound like racism or not?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst things first: Yes, Brazil really has a very long road to walk before it can adopt such wishful optimism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut some points should be clarified: Ana Lucia, you could have missed this opportunity to show this so common lack of self esteem as a Brazilian. Independent of political positions, I think anyone should be proud to see their president authoring a paper in a science related magazine. Even though self promotion is included, most of the article represents a commitment to better days. It is our job as citizens to check in future if this commitment is real.
Constance, thank you for trying to understand your surroundings when you visited us. You have good points. But concerning olives... well, globalization is very real in Brazil too, and the dynamics of the market is the determinant thing nowadays. How many imported items you can count in an US supermarket that you too can produce?
This piece of propaganda is outrageous when faced with the calamitous state of public education in this country! It's literally, as we say here in Brazil, "something for the eyes of the Englishmen" - i.e., just to cause a good impression on foreigners, by hiding the ugly facts. And there are so many of such facts!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst of all, it's ridiculous to talk about scientific education - or any kind of education at all - when, according to official data, 90% of all schools do not have laboratories, and 60% lack libraries! In fact, these are luxuries in a country in which several schools, both in rural and urban areas (It will be difficult for you non-Brazilians to even imagine such a thing, but try to make an effort!), lack water, power, walls, doors, windows, ceilings and floors! They are the horrid materialization of "the house" from the otherwise funny infantile poem of Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes...
In schools that do have the minimal material structure to deserve to be called like this, thousands of pupils miss teachers, because the salaries paid are so low and the overall working conditions so adverse that many of them simply quit their jobs and are not replaced by new ones in a sustained pace, as by the same reasons, to become an educator is not the primary objective of the majority of undergraduates in our universities.
The ultimate result of this perversity perpetrated by successive governments (Lula's is just the last one in a long and still unbroken chain of careless educational policies) is that "never before in the history of this country", like our president uses to say, so many students get to college level barely knowing how to read, write and count! To use a hypocritical euphemism common here, they are called "functional analphabetics"...
And even the ones that "enjoy" (if the word applies) exceptional opportunities (equivalent to ordinary conditions in any civilized country) to learn something at all (mostly in private schools, or in the rare public ones sustained by universities or research institutes, like Dr. Nicolelis' praise-worthy but sadly isolated iniciative), when are compared with students from other countries in international exams like the OECD-PISA, not surprisingly they get the worst grades.
Brazil does not need to "improve" its education, but to redesign and reconstruct it from scratch, as the primary and ultimate national priority, far beyond the emptyness of official speech. Otherwise, what we shall inexorably see, contrary to the optmistic delusion of our president and his followers, is what we are already beginning to watch: the complete obliteration of our future.
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Edited by sairjohn at 01/17/2008 5:04 PM
your posting is full of preconceived ideas against the authors and the ´country.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have just two comments about this subject:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- First, It was really a big surprise for me to see an article written by politicians in a prestigious scientific magazine, like this one.
- Second: It´s shameful and very sad to see intelligent and educated people posting preconceived and pejorative thoughts about their own country.
Needless to say that Brazil is a country full of long lasting problems (all kind of them). But, is very important that, at least, the educated brazilians do recognize the huge potential of the country in the present global scenario, and that this is a position conquered, in spite of our leaders, both of the present or the past.
Brazil does not need to "improve" its education, but to redesign and reconstruct it from scratch, as the primary and ultimate national priority, far beyond the emptyness of official speech.
I just have to agree. I studied on a public school and I can say: if you are a genius, you are going to become a person not interested on studys; or (what happens usually to people) leave school. I can say it because I have seen it.
Why bother with more complex education while the basics are horrible and children learn nothing?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am very happy to post my comment in this blog. I gathered lot of information from this site.
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Ah, our "mongrel complex"...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with Dr. Nicolelis when he says: "I came to conclusion that today in Brazil is hard to speak well of Brazil. There is a culture of confounding the country with who is in the charge of the government. And we can't tell good news. It is a scary thing, I can't understand".
Brazilians who could help to change our reality (the so called intelligent and educated people of our country) CHOOSE to criticize initiatives like this, instead of doing the same, which is, doing the best they can. Nicolelis worked hard until reach the position he has today, and he CHOOSE to use his work and position to help his country. It is beautiful and impressive.
To finish, Dr. Nicolelis: "I became more Brazilian living abroad. And I think it is inconceivable that our children grow up without knowing the difference between cheap patriotism and real love for Brazil. [...] To know what country it is, what are its problems, but also what are its wonders..."
Porque n�o basta querer estar em um pa�s melhor, � necess�rio lutar por isso. Pe�o desculpas pelo ingl�s ruim, mas portugu�s brasileiro � minha l�ngua nativa e de cora��o, e n�o troco por outra.
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