Políticas sociais públicas como espaço para o resgate da cidadania: análise de um projeto de educação de adultos com famílias empobrecidas de cinco comunidades do município de Campos dos Goitacazes

Este trabalho procura analisar um Projeto-piloto de educação de adultos com trabalhadores rurais lumpem-proletarizados pelo violento e acelerado processo de modernização da agro-indústria sucro-alcooleira do município de Campos dos Goytacazes. Expropriados de seus meios de trabalho, 50% destas populações foram expulsas do meio rural durante o período de 1950-91, sendo que 25% delas foram obrigadas a se mudar para a cidade de Campos durante a década de 80, multiplicando o número de favelas de 13 para 30, em áreas insalubres e perigosas. Dados do mGE/IPEA apontam uma população atual de 26.000 famílias vivendo na indigência, o que representa 130.000 pessoas ou 33% do total de residentes do município de Campos que demandam a criação urgente de programas habitacionais, de saúde preventiva, educação, lazer, reciclagem profissional, empregos, etc. Dada a brutalidade e intensidade do processo de lumpem-proletarização destes trabalhadores rurais, a partir da década de 80, toma-se necessário que o Poder Público Municipal defina como prioridade de ação a criação de Programas específicos, e com metodologias adequadas, para o atendimento a estas populações. O Projeto de Geração de Renda através da Metodologia da Educação de Rua, realizado pela Secretaria Municipal de Desenvolvimento e Promoção Social-SMDPS, da Prefeitura Municipal de Campos dos Goytacazes, durante os anos de 1991-92, mostrou-se uma alternativa adequada para estimular a conquista da cidadania por parte das populações com elevado nível de empobrecimento. Realizado no meio-ambiente destas populações e tendo como principal pressuposto pedagógico o resgate de seus saberes e a identificação de seus principais problemas, necessidades, interesses e desejos, este projeto conseguiu mobilizar e envolver as populações atendidas por ele promovendo a elevação de seus níveis de participação, de auto-estima e auto-confiança, assim como a melhoria dos níves de relacionamento entre os participantes do projeto, tanto entre técnicos- educadores e populações, quanto destas populações com suas vizinhanças. Esta melhoria dos níveis de relacionamento entre os participantes do projeto pôde ser observada através do aumento da capacidade de tolerância, diálogo, respeito, reconhecimento e valorização dos aspectos positivos de cada um.

Public investment in basic education and economic growth

The main objective of this paper was to visualize the relation between government spending on basic education and the human capital accumulation process, observing the impacts of this spending on individual investments in higher education, and on economic growth. It is used an overlapping-generations model where the government tax the adult generation and spent it in basic education of the next generations. It was demonstrated that the magnitude of the marginal effect of government spending in basic education on growth crucially depends on public budget constrains. The paper explains why some countries with a lot of public investment in basic education growth at low rates. In that sense if a country has only a lot of public investment in basic education without investment in higher education it may growth at low rates because the taxation can cause distortions in the agents incentives to invest in higher education.

From dakar to Brasilia: monitoring unesco´s education goals

Active participation of Brazilian civil society, coupled with the 2007 education development plan, launched by the Brazilian government provides an interesting example of the influences of the Dakar Goals. The two domestic initiatives share the same name, spirit and direction proposed in Dakar 2000. We analyse here changes in the Brazilian policies and indicators related to the Dakar Education Goals since its creation, we note: (i) an increase in enrolment over the relevant period; (ii) access to primary education was nearly universal by 2000; (iii) over-aged youth and adult students fell considerably during the period, but access did not expand; (iv) illiteracy has been falling at a rate which, if sustained, will enable us to meet the goal; (v) gender discrimination did not take place in Brazil; (vi) most pupil proficiency indicators have progressively deteriorated from what was already a low standard. In summary, quantity indicators did improve over the period while most quality indicators worsened.

Equity and Efficiency in Education: motivations and targets

The recently released "Educational PAC" attempts to place basic education at the center of the social debate. We have subsidized this debate, offering a diagnosis of how different education levels can impact individuals' lives through broad and easily interpreted indicators. Initially, we analyze how much each educational level reaches the poorest population. For example, how are those in the bottom strata of income distribution benefited by childcare centers, private secondary education, public university or adult education. The next step is to quantify the return of educational actions, such as their effects on employability and an individual's wages, and even health as perceived by the individual, be that individual poor, middle class or elite. The next part of the research presents evidence of how the main characters in education, aka mothers, fathers and children, regard education. The site available with the research presents a broad, user-friendly database, which will allow interested parties to answer their own questions relative to why people do not attend school, the time spent in the educational system and returns to education, which can all be cross-sectioned with a wide array of socio-demographic attributes (gender, income, etc.) and school characteristics (is it public, are school meals offered, etc.) to find answers to: why do young adults of a certain age not attend school? Why do they miss classes? How long is the school day? Aside from the whys and hows of teaching, the research calculates the amount of time spent in school, resulting from a combination between absence rates, evasion raters and length of the school day. The study presents ranks of indicators referring to objective and subjective aspects of education, such as the discussion of the advantages and care in establishing performance based incentives that aim at guiding the states in the race for better educational indicators.

Is child labor harmful? the impact of working as a child on adult earnings

This paper explores the question: is working as young laborer harmful to an individual in terms of adult outcomes in income? This question is explored through the utilization of a unique set of instruments that control for the decision to work as a child and the decision of how much schooling to acquire. These instruments are combined with two large household survey data sets from Brazil that include retrospective information on the child labor and schooling of working-age adults: the 1988 and 1996 PNAD. Estimations of the reduced form earnings model are performed first by using OLS without controlling for the potential endogeneity of child labor and schooling, and then by using a GMM estimation of instrumental variables models that include the set of instruments for child labor and schooling. The findings of the empirical investigations show that child labor has large negative impact on adult earnings for both male and female children even when controlling for schooling. In addition, the negative impact of starting to work as a child reverses at around age 14. Finally, different child labor activities are examined to determine if some are beneficial while others harmful with the finding that working in agriculture as a child appears to have no negative impact over and above the loss of education.