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Q&A with Tabata Amaral: “It’s Impossible to Talk About Meritocracy in a Country as Unequal as Brazil. We Need a Robust and Qualified Expansion of Basic and Higher Education”

This post is also available in: Português

The following is part of a series of interviews produced by the Inter-American Dialogue’s Education Program that features Brazil’s Black population’s educational trajectory, challenges, and future opportunities.

In Brazil, efforts to build a legitimate and lasting democratic project must respond to the historical challenges and realities of a majority Afro-descendant population (55.5 percent, according to the 2022 census). While Brazil often projects an image of racial harmony abroad, its Black population faces severe economic, social, and political disadvantages at home. This disconnect limits Brazil’s potential for development, preventing it from leveraging its diverse society to address regional challenges in a hemisphere that yearns for innovative responses to inequality, social cohesion, and citizenship safeguards.

The context for this interview series could not be more appropriate. Recently, discussions over Brazilian inequalities, especially ethnoracial ones, have regained visibility at home and abroad. In 2023, the federal government re-established the Ministry of Racial Equality and the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, bodies responsible for implementing public policies to combat racism and promote the rights of Black and Indigenous populations, respectively. In addition, the country is reforming the national curriculum frameworks for secondary education, which could present a window of opportunity to address educational deficits and consider the demands of historically marginalized populations.

At the international level, while participating in the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Brazil voluntarily adopted the 18th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) related to racial equality (in addition to the current 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda). In addition, the Lula and Biden administrations resumed the Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Discrimination and Promote Equality (JAPER), an initiative focused on education, healthcare, violence reduction, justice, and preserving the culture and memory of marginalized racial and ethnic populations. Similarly, Brazil has established cooperation channels with countries such as Colombia and Spain, providing exchange activities and sharing experiences of overcoming racism in scientific research, education, history, and culture. Also, during Brazil’s presidency of the G20, the country focused on inequality as the central theme of its four priorities at last year’s summit in Rio: sustainable development, social inclusion, the fight against hunger and poverty, and global governance reforms.

Considering the context and seeking to understand how the Brazilian education system produces unequal educational development trajectories, we spoke to Tabata Amaral, federal deputy of the state of São Paulo and member of the Inter-American Dialogue. Amaral dedicates herself to issues of education, women’s rights, inequalities, and social development.

Lucas Martins Carvalho (LMC): How do you see the Brazilian education system and its deficits with Black populations?

Tabata Amaral (TA): As a society, we do a poor job ensuring that our young people have their dignity guaranteed, their rights fulfilled, and equal opportunities to even dream of a better future. When we take into consideration the racial and social divide, the situation intensifies in a much more negative way for the young, Black, and low-income population.

Regarding the systemic issues we face, I can mention the lack of teachers and adequate training, proper plumbing infrastructure in schools, adequate toilets, and school materials, among others. Even in large urban areas like São Paulo, public schools mean very little to young people. There are not enough discussions about future careers for students or, for that matter, focus on how many young people finish elementary school without being able to read and write adequately. When we look at race, many studies make clear the divide between black and white students, even though they are exposed to the same school environment. One of the reasons is the lack of imaginable futures for the low-income youth population, with even fewer possibilities for black youth.

A study carried out in São Paulo compared state assessments (SARESP) with assessments made by teachers. The study observed a difference between the evaluation grades given by SARESP, a blind test that did not differentiate between whites and blacks, and those provided by teachers. In other words, the studies concluded that teachers often give lower grades and standards to their black students. Obviously, the difference is a consequence of structural racism and biases that make society’s expectations of these young people very clear. Structural racism influences the way these young people see themselves and the way society looks at this group.

The markers of inequality intersect and are much more explicit when viewed from a social and racial perspective. The pandemic has deepened existing inequalities. For example, data from Data Favela shows that half of the students living in favelas had no access to education during the pandemic. Some reasons that explain this are the lack of access to the internet or a designated place to study, learning equipment, and often a lack of parental support for education. We know that having a family history of formal education brings a lot of advantages to those who have it as well.

LMC: What can the post-pandemic moment revisit to change the bottlenecks in the education of the Black population?

TA: This moment that we are experiencing with the new Brazilian administration and with all the inequalities that the pandemic has deepened is when we once again have the chance to choose to fight inequality, prioritize basic education, and invest in technical and vocational education. We need to understand that inequality is our country’s greatest evil. Brazil will never be a fair, developed, or ethical country if the poorest have so little and if poverty is a trap that is difficult to escape only through individual efforts alone.

This is a highly unequal country. It’s not possible to talk about meritocracy in Brazil. So, what we need is a robust, qualified investment in basic education and increased opportunities for access to higher education. We need an education that prepares young people for the world and the job market so that they have the freedom to be who they are and who they dream of. We need to understand the fight against racism as essential within public education because if we don’t, we can improve the quality of public schools, but black students will continue to learn less than their white counterparts.

LMC: In terms of public policies, what are the biggest challenges and opportunities that the national situation presents for the recovery and improvement of the educational trajectory of these populations?

TA: The change in administration is very positive for education. Basic education has never been the number one priority in Brazil, but it had never been attacked so aggressively [during the Bolsonaro administration]. Never have so many resources been withdrawn from education, alongside corruption scandals, neglect, and contempt over the situation in the country. So, I look at this moment with a lot of optimism. We have a new Fund for Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and Valuing Education Professionals (FUNDEB)¹, the largest, most redistributed basic education fund, which, for the first time, also looks at the quality of education. And I’m very proud of this new FUNDEB because it was an achievement of a proposal I presented and fought hard to make happen.

LMC: What would be the post-pandemic priorities to guarantee the right to a quality education for the Black population?

TA: We must deal with the backlog these last few years have brought, school dropouts, and learning recovery. At the same time, we must understand that we can’t just stick to the old agenda. We also need a holistic, integrated education strategy that includes sports, culture, and arts and prepares young people to access decent jobs and be vocal about their own stories. We need an agenda for technical education, which is sorely lacking in Brazil. That’s what I dream about, and, at the end of the day, we want Brazil to have the best public schools in the world. What I see that’s needed now is for us to stop the backslide of the last few years and address long-standing agendas, such as literacy, training, and valuing teachers, while moving forward on new agendas, such as the technological revolution and global changes in the labor market.

 


1. FUNDEB stands for Fund for Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and Valuing Education Professionals. The FUNDEB is Brazil’s financing mechanism that seeks to promote educational resource redistribution, thus ensuring that marginalized schools get the resources they need to support their students. As of 2019, FUNDEB represented 40 percent of Brazil’s public education budget.

COMENTARIOS DE TARACIUK BRONER:

Q & A:

Q

¿Qué tan válido ves tú — o legítimo — el temor que reporta la Casa Blanca de que aumente la migración haitiana?

A

“Una política de seguridad que funcione debe tener dos pilares: una visión punitivista donde quien comete un delito vaya preso, pero con debido proceso y bajo investigaciones por un poder judicial independiente y, por otro lado, una serie de políticas que sean más sociales y preventivas que eviten la comisión del delito.” 

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