Brazil at Risk of Having Unemployed Teachers in Coming Years

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – This is the finding from researcher Ricardo Paes de Barros, chief economist of the Ayrton Senna Institute and professor at INSPER (school of business, economics, and engineering), who submitted a detailed diagnosis of education in the 27 states of Brazil’s federation on Thursday, December 5th.

The study coordinated by the specialist points out that the country has trained 1.15 million teachers for basic education between 2013 and 2017. The number represents half of the 2.23 million teachers currently working in Brazil, of whom 1.75 million work in the public school network, according to Barros’ estimate.

In addition, according to the researcher’s projections, another 1.5 million teachers will leave Education and undergraduate courses over the next five years.

He also noted that 21 percent of college graduates are students in careers such as mathematics, physics, and Portuguese who prepare for teaching, “We are a country of teachers,” said PB, as the economist is known.

The trouble is that the pace of teacher training seems incompatible with the strong downward trend in birth rates in recent decades, which will reduce the number of students of school age in most Brazilian states.

In São Paulo, for instance, PB projects a drop in primary school enrollments from 7.13 million in 2018 to 6.44 million in 2050. According to the researcher, few federative units have not yet begun this process. One case he mentions is Roraima State, where the population, including children, is growing as a result of migratory flows.

The demographic change underway in Brazil tends to lead to a drop in demand for teachers in the future.

“We have asked universities to train teachers over the past 30 years and they have served us. But no one told them to stop,” Paes de Barros said, “You will have to employ them,” the researcher told state secretaries of education at an event at INSPER, where the study was introduced yesterday morning.

Part of the potential problem of over-supply of teaching staff will be solved as a result of teachers retiring from classrooms in the coming years.

However, according to PB, this solution will have a limited effect, since the share of teachers over 50 years old represents 22 percent of the total in Brazil as a whole.

The research carried out by the economist and his team seeks not only to provide a diagnosis of problems such as the pace of teacher training in each of the states but also to point out options for paths to seven main educational dilemmas.

In addition to solving the future issue of excessive supply of teaching labor, a challenge for the states is to increase the attractiveness of careers so that more students with a good level of learning will be interested in teaching in the coming years.

As reported on Thursday, December 5th, by Folha de S.Paulo, also based on the IAS study, Education and Undergraduate students perform worse than the average of all university students in all the states in Brazil.

PB stated in his presentation to the Secretaries of Education that a sound solution for reallocating resources that could be saved with the drop in school enrollments is to invest in ways to increase the attractiveness of teaching.

But also as the research shows, this is likely to require a difficult political choice. To save money in the wake of the demographic transition, states and municipalities may have to make decisions such as reducing class sizes, working with fuller classes and closing schools.

According to Pernambuco State’s secretary of education, Fred Amancio, the extension of full-time schools is yet another path that states could pursue.

According to him, in addition to contributing to better learning, this measure would help in the absorption of the teaching workforce.

Source: Folhapress