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Notes
on Cost-student-quality
In Brazil and the world
there is an increasing debate about the Quality of Basic
Education, with more involvement of society and more
density in the diagnosis and proposals. This debate goes
further than the level of ideas, but approaching themes
like quality , financing or education legislation, it
also deals with the practical viability of the proposals
and the political strategies to make them effective. "Quality Education for all: How much does this right cost?" Elizabete Ramos (*) Board of Directors of the National Campaign for the Right to Education- Brazil The National Campaign for the Right to Education is a political articulation of organizations, movements and networks of the Brazilian civil society which started in 1999 in the context of the preparatory process of the World Education Forum in Dakar, 2000. It has been working in the last few years trying to fulfill what the Brazilian legislation establishes as the definition of referential of Cost-Student-Quality (CSQ) for basic education. Its purpose is that these referentials be used to direct the building of a financing policy for basic education, which is committed with the right to quality education for all people. Opposite to how things work in Brazil, that is the subordination of social investment to budgetary availability imposed by the fiscal adjustment, the CSQ started from the question: How much does quality education for all cost? How much this right cost? Or more clearly; What is the necessary investment per student that Brazil needs to apply to increase the access and quality of education, according to the goals of the 2001 National Education Plan? But, what quality? A process for building a concept In 2002, the Campaign started a process of discussion, systematization and synthesis to arrive to the Cost-Student-Quality concept. To achieve this the Campaign promoted workshops in 2002, 2003 and 2005, gathering in intense debates specialists, civil society leaders, and government authorities from the municipal, state and federal levels. The workshops addressed Quality and Inputs (2002); Quality and Equity (2003), and a methodology of calculus of the Cost-Student-Quality (2005). In that same period the Campaign has done studies and research about Quality in Education, with a Survey en the Quality in Schools (2002), done in the Brazilian states of Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Sul; an activity of education research: Quality in Education, promoted as part of the mobilization for the 2003 Global Action Week; and later a Consultation on the Quality of Children Education (2006). Finally, in 2007 the Campaign published a book “Custo Aluno-Qualidade Inicial: rumo à educação pública de qualidade no Brasil” (Carreira & Pinto, 2007) Quality: a concept in dispute The Campaign understands that quality is a historical and socially built concept, and that the debate over this concept reflects the period and the moment we live in. A quality from a democratic perspective, that needs to face some challenges like: an efficiency which is not just for a few; which the minimum, serious level of rights for an education that is humanist, non sexist, non racist, tolerant, and extended to all? How is that education of quality? What should it develop in the students? How does it relate with the society projects, with human values, with solidarity? How do we incorporate the issues of groups that deal with identities and differences? And, what about the questions of diversity, differences and inclusion? And more, who should define that quality? How should we revitalize, perfect, strengthen and politicize the spaces, processes and participative institutionalizations of education, in order that they guarantee the citizens control and the effective influence of the civil societyin the setting of education policies from a perspective of the right? References about Quality: Starting with that process, the Campaign developed some References about Quality. We understand quality in education as a process that: · Generates subjects of rights, of learning and of knowledge; subjects of full life: · Is committed with cultural and social inclusion, a better quality of everyday life, the respect of diversity, the promotion of environmental sustainability, democracy, and the consolidation of the Rule of Law; · Demands long term financial investments and the acknowledgement of cultural, social and political diversity; · Acknowledges and confronts the social inequities in education, and properly locates them in the whole of social and economic policies of the country; · Refers to the needs, contexts and development challenges of a region, country or place; · Does not dissociate from the guarantee of access to the right of education; · Improves through social and political participation, guaranteed by institutions and participative and democratic processes that are independent from the will of the administrator in charge. Fundamentals of the CSQ: 1. The values of the CSQ by phase and modalities of basic education, establish a minimum level of quality of education, not an average value; therefore, the most adequate is to define it as Initial Cost-Student-Quality (ICSQ), as a first, decisive step towards the quality that we yearn for as ideal; 2. The value of the ICSQ is essentially dynamic and tends to increase as the quality of the offered public education improves, and the patterns of demand of the population increase too; 3. The value of the ICSQ is calculated from the essential inputs for the development of the processes of education and learning; 4. The value of the ICSQ needs to be differentiated according to the various levels and modalities of education; 5. The ICSQ should ensure worthy salaries to teachers as well as to the rest of the education workers (Resolution 3 of 10/8/1997 of the National Council of Education - NCE); 6. The ICSQ should take into account the parameters of infrastructure and teacher qualification defined by the NEP (National Education Plan); 7. The ICSQ should contribute to confront the current challenges to equity in the Brazilian education. It should take into account the policies of inclusion (access, ethnic, deficiencies); Matrix of the CSQ: From the perspective of building a matrix for the calculus of the CSQ, there was set a referential that relates the quality offered in the phases and modalities with the necessary inputs, the challenges relative to the inequities that impact the education, and the fundamental dimensions of the education and learning processes. The base for the construction of the CSQ relates with the crossing of these variables. It will be needed a great effort to put financing to the service of the conquest of a quality public education. 1. Phases and Modalities of the Basic Education in Brazil: o Phases: Children Education- nursery and preschool; Fundamental Education and Middle Education. o Modalities: Education for young people and adults (EYA); Special education; Native education; Distance education; Professional education; and Country education. 2. Inputs that form the ICSQ The quality of education is related to the education and learning processes which, at the same time, relate with the inputs used: · Related to infrastructure and operation: they refer to the construction and maintenance of the facilities, basic materials of conservation and education support equipment. · Related to the education workers: they refer to the conditions of work, salaries, career plans, working day, initial and continuing training, number of students by classroom, etc.; · Related to the democratic operation: Promotion of the participation of the school community, team work, democratization of the school administration and the education systems through the school and education councils, guarantee of participation of parents, participative processes for the election of leaders, independent student unions, participative evaluation practices, etc.; · Related to the access and stay: they should guarantee the access and stay of students, like school transport, materials, food, clothes. They should articulate with other policies like health, social assistance, rural development, etc. 3. Equity shortcomings Related to the inequities based in differences of gender, race, ethnic, religious, country/city, age, sexual orientation and people with special needs. 4. Dimensions Esthetic dimension. Environmental dimension. Human relations dimension. The education financing in Brazil: Main public sources of education financing: - % of tax collection (Minimum of 18% of federal taxes and a 25% of state and municipal taxes) = (4 % of GDP) - Salary-Education (only for Basic Education) = (0,3% of GDP) Legal grounds of the Cost-Student-Quality Federal Constitution of 1988 Art. 211. The Union, the States, the Federal District and the Municipalities will organize through collaboration their systems of education. § 1º The Union will organize the federal system of education and the one for the Territories, will finance the public federal education institutions, and will exercise, in educational matter, a function of redistribution and additional, in order to guarantee equal education opportunities and a minimum level of quality of education, through technical and financial assistance to the States, the Federal District and the Municipalities. Art. 206. The education will be managed according the following principles: I - Equality in conditions of access and stay in school; V valorization of the education professionals, guaranteeing through the law the career plan for teachers, with a base salary. VII - guaranty of a quality standard. Art. 60 of ADCT, inc. XII, § 1º The Union, the States, the Federal District and the Municipalities will ensure, in the financing of the basic education, the improvement of the quality of education, in order to guarantee a minimum standard defined nationally (CF EC 53). Directives and Bases of the National Education Act/ LDBEN (1996) Art. 4, inc. IX Minimum standard of quality of education: “minimum variety and quantity, per student, of essential inputs for the development of the education-learning process”. National Education Plan/NEP (2001) Expenditure per student/yearly - by phase and modality - needed to reach an initial level of quality. Definition of minimum standards for infrastructure of schools and teachers qualification. (Please, see tables on "Proposal of ICSQ to debate" and "ICSQ Financial Impact" in the attached document) Observations 1 In the ICSQ proposal there is no differentiation between the cost of Adult Education (AE) and the regular education. The registration of these different modalities is summed up in the respective phases. So, we have the AE relative to literacy teaching and first grades of fundamental education (FE 1), final grades (FE 2), and also the AE in the middle education. 2- The registration of special education was entered in the fundamental education with factor 2 (estimating the cost as the double). 3 - GDP of reference (2005): R$ 1,9 bill. 4 According to the legislation, the expenditures with food are not considered expenditures with maintenance and development of education (MDE) and they should be funded by social contributions. 5 It was estimated a public expenditure of 1,0% of the GDP with the superior education. To finish... We tried to present a synthesis of the reflections and debates of the National Campaign for the Right to Education in Brazil on the Cost-Student-Quality for all Basic Education, which is reference for the policies of public education financing. Will these questions pertinent for other countries and for Adult Education? Or, rephrasing the initial question: Adult Education of Quality for all: How much does this right cost? (*) Based on the book “Custo Aluno Qualidade Inicial: rumo à educação pública de qualidade no Brasil (Carreira & Pinto, 2007)
Proposal
of ICSQ to debate
ICSQ Financial Impact (2005)
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