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A video series profiling policies and practices of education systems thatdemonstrate high or improving performance in the PISA tests.

Key factsImproving the education of its citizens isvital for Brazil's future economicdevelopment. With children under 15 yearsof age accounting for one-fourth of itspopulation of 200 million, the challenges areenormous. But progress is being made.

In the 1950s, 64% of Brazil's populationlived in rural areas and over 50% wereilliterate. Over the next half-century, thepopulation soared and large numbers ofpeople moved from rural to urban areas.

In 1972, Brazil expanded mandatoryeducation to include children from 7-14years of age. But in 1980, the illiteracyrate was still around 25%.

In 1988, a new Constitution provided formandatory free elementary education andrequired a minimum 25% of state andmunicipal revenues and 18% of federalrevenues to be spent on education. Butsetting targets was one thing: reachingthem proved more difficult.

In 1995, 90% of all children were enrolledin primary school at age seven, but onlyhalf completed eighth grade.

In 2000, 13.6% of adults were still totallyilliterate and Brazil was the lowestperforming country in the PISA tests of 15-year-old school students. More than halfof students tested ranked at Level One orbelow 32.5% in Level One and 23.3%even lower. Fewer than 1% scored at thetop level, Level Five.

Brazil's 200,000 schools have biggeraverage class sizes than schools in mostOECD countries: 27.1 children per class inprimary schools and 30.5 at lowersecondary level in 2008, against an OECDaverage of 21.6 and 23.7 respectively.The ratio of students to teaching staff is

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Creating and nurturing a laboratory of innovationand best practicesBrazil, like many developing countries, faces wide-ranging economic and socialinequities and major challenges in education. Its constitution provides for mandatory freeelementary education and sets a minimum to be spent on education of 25% of state andmunicipal revenues and 18% at the federal level. But high rates of grade repetition anddropout mean that many children make only limited progress. In PISA 2000, Brazil wasthe lowest performing country. More than half of its students ranked at Level One orbelow. Fewer than 1% scored at the top level.

Since then, thanks to wide-ranging educational reform, Brazil's performance has begunto improve. Its students still perform at well below the OECD average, but its experienceshows how a country facing major challenges in teacher quality, infrastructure andstudent commitment, and with a highly decentralized education system, can use nationaland international benchmarking to identify problems and drive reform.

Under Brazil's decentralized education system, its 27 federal states have primaryresponsibility for schooling, in association with the municipal authorities of Brazil's 5,561municipalities. In 2001, a National Education Plan set out guidelines, goals and prioritiesfor the three levels of government at federal, state and municipal level. In 2007, a federalEducation Development Plan combined increased spending in classrooms withperformance monitoring to drive improvements.

One of the main objectives was to raise the quality of Brazil's 1.5 million teachers, manyof whom had only high school education. Low pay and poor working conditions,including teaching two shifts a day (often in two different schools) discouraged potentialcandidates. Teacher absenteeism was high, partly because of the difficulty of gettingfrom one school to the other in city traffic or along rural roads.

A base salary was introduced for teachers and minimum entry qualifications were raised.At the same time, the government introduced a new indicator of education quality calledthe Basic Education Development Index (IDEB), in order to track schools' performance.IDEB draws on student test results and graduation rates to provide a nation-wideperformance map through which the federal government can identify weaknesses andprovide technical and cash assistance.

For states, the combination of monitoring and support provides a real incentive to useeffective strategies and improve student achievement. States have to diagnose theproblems in low-performing schools and develop an improvement plan to send to thefederal education ministry. The ministry tracks progress in order to identify best practicesthat can be shared with other states. By setting individual quality goals and then leavingschools free to choose how best to achieve them, the Education Development Plan haseffectively transformed Brazil into a giant laboratory of best education practices.

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Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education

VIDEO FEATURE: Brazil Embed Transcripts

also higher, at 24.5 to one in primaryschool and 21.2 to one in lower secondaryschool in 2008, against OECD averagesof 16.4 to one and 13.7 to onerespectively.

OutcomesOver the past decade, the federalgovernment has launched a major effort toimprove education, increasing spending inclassrooms and on teacher salaries andproviding extra help for poorer families inorder to get children into classrooms. Bysetting quality targets and leaving schoolsfree to choose how best to achieve them, itsNational Education Plan has transformedthe country into a laboratory of besteducation practices.

From 4.0% in 2000, investment ineducation rose to the equivalent of 5.2%of Brazil's gross domestic product in 2009.

Though still well below the OECDaverage, Brazil's PISA scores haveimproved. In reading, they advanced from396 in 2000 to 412 in 2009; inmathematics from 356 in 2003 to 386 in2009; and in science from 390 in 2006 to405 in 2009.

Average performance in primary schools(grades 1-4), as tracked by Brazil's BasicEducation Development Index (IDEB),rose from 3.8 on a scale of zero to 10 in2005 to 4.6 in 2009. In intermediateschools (grades 5-8), the average rosefrom 3.5 to 4.0 and in high school (grades9-11) from 3.4 to 3.6.

The government has set an IDEB target of6.0 for 2021, the year before Brazilcelebrates its 200th anniversary, against a2005 average of 3.8.

ResourcesPISA 2009 Results: What Students Know and Can Do

PISA 2009 Results: Overcoming social background

PISA 2000 Relatrio Nacional

Iberoamerica in PISA 2006: Regional Report

PISA 2009 Results

The Effectiveness of Education and Health Spending among Brazilian Municipalities;by Luiz de Mello & Mauro Pisu, OECD Economics Department Working Paper 712

Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education Brazil: EncouragingLessons from a Large Federal System

The OECD Programmefor International StudentAssessment (PISA)

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