Hi all,
I don't have much to report on the cultural, environmental, or historical background of Serra, in the state Espirito Santo, but I did come across these two fascinating articles on the challenges and dispiriting realities facing the world's educational dreams.
In today's NY Times, Eduardo Porter reports on dire consequences of tying education policy to access without engaging in a debate over a shared definition of education quality: As Global Number of Pupils Soars, Education Falls Behind
In many countries around the world, from Uganda to Brazil to Mexico, it is becoming increasingly clear that we’ve "made substantial progress around the globe in sending people to school,” said Eric Hanushek, an expert on the economics of education at Stanford University. “But a large number of people who have gone to school haven’t learned anything.”
Another illustrative statistic that was included, found that achieving "PISA’s Level 1 requires no more than a sort of modern functional literacy. Fifteen-year-olds need to be able to figure out, for instance, how many South African rand Mei-Liing will get if she changes 3,000 Singapore dollars into the South African currency at the rate of 1 Singapore dollar for 4.2 rand. (The answer is 12,600.) Among 15-year-olds, 89 percent of Ghanaians failed to reach this level, as did 74 percent of Indonesians and 64 percent of Brazilians. So did 24 percent of Americans."
This article really helped add a global perspective to a recent Atlantic article on the racial disparity in quality higher education in Brazil: Brazil: Where Free Universities Largely Serve the Wealthy
One section that really outline the problem well explained how federal "universities, which are the only free colleges in the country, are at the top of this country’s higher-education hierarchy. They are also extraordinarily competitive in a country where there is significant and growing demand for higher education—and where the people who score at the top of the SAT-style university entrance exam are predominantly rich, white students whose parents were able to afford to send them to private high schools. So the people who can most afford to pay for their higher educations end up not only getting into the best schools, but also spending nothing on tuition"
In addition to that sad irony is the expensive choice students must make when they are not accepted into the privilege of a free education:
"According to Edson de Oliveira Nunes, the dean of policy and development at the Universidade Candido Mendes, Brazil in the mid-1990s practically invented the concept of for-profit colleges—before the huge growth of such institutions in the U.S., including companies like Kaplan and the University of Phoenix. And as U.S. for-profit colleges have seen dramatic fall-offs in enrollment in the last few years, in largely part because of legal troubles and widespread skepticism about their quality, those in Brazil have continued to grow. According to figures widely cited by Brazilian news media, for-profits now enroll three-quarters of all college students here, or nearly 5.3 million people—more than twice as many students as in U.S. for-profit schools. Brazil’s five biggest universities, by enrollment, are for-profit. One Brazilian firm, Kroton Educacional, is potentially the world’s largest for-profit higher-education company, with more than 1 million students on as many as 130 campuses across the country, according to its website.
The quality of public basic schools has also failed to keep pace with their breakneck student growth, even despite significant government spending on education. Just over 6 percent of Brazil’s GDP, and 19 percent of its national budget, goes into education—more than almost every country in the OECD. Yet the World Economic Forum ranks the country 105th out of 122 countries in the quality of its education system."
I think that is enough to chew on for day. But hopefully, next time I'll some happier news to report.
Até amanhã!
I don't have much to report on the cultural, environmental, or historical background of Serra, in the state Espirito Santo, but I did come across these two fascinating articles on the challenges and dispiriting realities facing the world's educational dreams.
In today's NY Times, Eduardo Porter reports on dire consequences of tying education policy to access without engaging in a debate over a shared definition of education quality: As Global Number of Pupils Soars, Education Falls Behind
In many countries around the world, from Uganda to Brazil to Mexico, it is becoming increasingly clear that we’ve "made substantial progress around the globe in sending people to school,” said Eric Hanushek, an expert on the economics of education at Stanford University. “But a large number of people who have gone to school haven’t learned anything.”
Another illustrative statistic that was included, found that achieving "PISA’s Level 1 requires no more than a sort of modern functional literacy. Fifteen-year-olds need to be able to figure out, for instance, how many South African rand Mei-Liing will get if she changes 3,000 Singapore dollars into the South African currency at the rate of 1 Singapore dollar for 4.2 rand. (The answer is 12,600.) Among 15-year-olds, 89 percent of Ghanaians failed to reach this level, as did 74 percent of Indonesians and 64 percent of Brazilians. So did 24 percent of Americans."
This article really helped add a global perspective to a recent Atlantic article on the racial disparity in quality higher education in Brazil: Brazil: Where Free Universities Largely Serve the Wealthy
One section that really outline the problem well explained how federal "universities, which are the only free colleges in the country, are at the top of this country’s higher-education hierarchy. They are also extraordinarily competitive in a country where there is significant and growing demand for higher education—and where the people who score at the top of the SAT-style university entrance exam are predominantly rich, white students whose parents were able to afford to send them to private high schools. So the people who can most afford to pay for their higher educations end up not only getting into the best schools, but also spending nothing on tuition"
In addition to that sad irony is the expensive choice students must make when they are not accepted into the privilege of a free education:
"According to Edson de Oliveira Nunes, the dean of policy and development at the Universidade Candido Mendes, Brazil in the mid-1990s practically invented the concept of for-profit colleges—before the huge growth of such institutions in the U.S., including companies like Kaplan and the University of Phoenix. And as U.S. for-profit colleges have seen dramatic fall-offs in enrollment in the last few years, in largely part because of legal troubles and widespread skepticism about their quality, those in Brazil have continued to grow. According to figures widely cited by Brazilian news media, for-profits now enroll three-quarters of all college students here, or nearly 5.3 million people—more than twice as many students as in U.S. for-profit schools. Brazil’s five biggest universities, by enrollment, are for-profit. One Brazilian firm, Kroton Educacional, is potentially the world’s largest for-profit higher-education company, with more than 1 million students on as many as 130 campuses across the country, according to its website.
The quality of public basic schools has also failed to keep pace with their breakneck student growth, even despite significant government spending on education. Just over 6 percent of Brazil’s GDP, and 19 percent of its national budget, goes into education—more than almost every country in the OECD. Yet the World Economic Forum ranks the country 105th out of 122 countries in the quality of its education system."
I think that is enough to chew on for day. But hopefully, next time I'll some happier news to report.
Até amanhã!