Klaus Hart Brasilientexte

Wie Barack Obama den Tropenstaat Brasilien bewertet: “Brasilien ist eine beispielhafte Demokratie. Dieses Land ist nicht länger das Land der Zukunft – die Menschen in Brasilien sollten wissen, daß die Zukunft gekommen ist, sie ist hier, jetzt”.

QUALIFICATIONS OF BRAZILIAN PROFESSIONALS

Frei Betto

 Hopefully Congress will approve applying 10% of the GDP for education. It is not much, but much better than the present 4.5%. Another way, other than  significant investment in quality education, has not yet been discovered for developing a nation, increasing its Human Development Index and reducing exclusion, poverty and violence. Our country has a contingent of 92.5 million people in the work force, practically half the population. Of these, 45.5% are not registered or are self employed. According to the IBGE – PNAD 2011 (Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics – National Survey by Sample Household – 2011), only 771,409 have a Masters or a PhD. Only 12.5% of those who work are university graduates. Almost all manual labour workers finished high school: 46.8%, i.e. 53.2% of our workers did not even finish high school. Our universities today have 6.6 million students (of a contingent of 27.3 million young people between 18 and 25 years of age!). Of these 73.2% are in private universities. There are only 1.2 million doing technical courses. In Germany which is the world’s fourth economy, most middle school students (60%) are in technical courses. Education is a training ground, made easier by partnerships between schools and business which train apprentices. This reflects in the country’s economy. Last August unemployment amongst German youths under 25 reached 8.1%. In other Eurozone countries it reached 22.8%. Family income is associated with education level. In Brazil those who have a university diploma earn 167% more than those who only finish high school.

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2012/12/02/brasilien-lula-vorm-auftritt-auf-dem-ig-metall-kongres-in-berlin-macht-er-zuhause-taglich-schlagzeilen-wegen-eines-neuen-regierungs-korruptionsskandals/

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2012/11/30/ig-metall-ladt-lula-zu-festveranstaltung-anfang-dezember-nach-berlin-ein-vom-armenhaus-zur-boomregion-lateinamerikas/

Those who have an MA or a PhD earn an average of 426% more than high school graduates. There are 19.2 million Brazilians who have had no schooling or who attended school for only one year. In 2011 the average schooling was 7.3 years. Those who are working have had 8.4 years of study. In USA in 1960 60% of workers had finished high school. Today the index is 90%. However a good sign is that the Brazilian group who have had 11 years of schooling has increased by 22 million between 2001 and 2011. 12.9 million Brazilians over 7 years of age can neither read nor write. 20.4% of the over 15’s are functional illiterates – they can sign their name but are unable to write a letter or interpret a text. In the 15 to 64 group, only one in three Brazilians can interpret a text and do simple mathematical sums In 2011. 22.6% of children between 4 and 5 did not attend school. Below that age, 1.3 million were not able to find a place in a crèche. It is heartening to know that 98.2% of Brazilians between 6 and 14 are studying. But an alarming fact is that of the 27.3 million in the 18 to 25 group, 5.3m, are not in school and out of work. 40% of young people between 15 and 17 are not in school (FGV 2009 – Getulio Vargas Foundation). In the poorer segment with a per capita income under R$77.75 a month, almost half are not in school and out of work. How do they survive? Why are they not in school? It is in this contingent of “neither nor” (neither school nor work) that the highest rates of criminality are to be found. Many leave school due to lack of interest, lack of pedagogy, lack of financial resources, because they entered the drug trade and have become chemically dependent and also due to early pregnancy. The number of young women (3.5 million) in the “neither nor” group is almost double that of the young men (1.8 million). 50% of these young women are already mothers. I lived in the Santa Maria shanty town (favela) in Vitoria for five years. I saw that adolescent women are not molested when they become pregnant. A young unmarried woman without a child is vulnerable to permanent harassment which is often violent. Many become pregnant due to a lack of sex education and guidance in the use of contraceptives. It is necessary to speak English in this globalised economy. Only 0.5% of the Brazilian population can speak Shakespeare’s tongue. The majority are not fluent. Today, in the midst of preparations for the PAC (Programme for the Acceleration of Growth), the World Cup and the Olympics, Brazil faces a deficit of 150,000 engineers. Only 10% of university students follow careers linked to engineering. We have only six engineers per 1000 economically active persons. In the USA and Japan the proportion is 25/1000. What is lacking in Brazil is interaction between academia and business, theory and practice. Our university students lack sufficient technical knowledge. In our country a professor is valued for the amount of research and publications to his or her name and not for work experience. The master presents him/herself as one who holds knowledge and not as a facilitator for learning. Prejudice against Paulo Freire strengthens the anachronism of our universities. Our businesses, which aspire to more qualified manual labour, have not yet awoken to their role as leaders in education. *Frei Betto is a writer, author of “Alfabetto – autobiografia escolar” (Alfabetto – a school autobiography) (Ática).