Night classes attracting younger students in Brazil
Rio de Janeiro: Focused on adult education, the school operates under the principle that everyone can learn and teach. (Photo: Hans Georg)
At 20 years old, Maria Isabela de Lima attends the High School of Youth and Adult Education (EJA) at the Roberto Marinho Foundation School (FRM) in Rio de Janeiro. "It's different here, I feel like I learn more," says she, who previously attended night classes at a state school in the countryside of São Paulo. Maria is one of the students who is giving a new face to EJA, the Brazilian education segment devoted to learners who dropped out of regular classes. "There is still the perception that the students are elderly people seeking literacy," says Ana Lima, coordinator of the National Functional Literacy Index (Inaf). However, the majority of EJA students are under 59 years old.
The change is explained by the effort that Brazil has made since the 1980s to increase the number of enrollments, especially in Elementary Schools. As a result, the demand tends to be smaller and smaller. But old problems in Education, such as dropout, age-grade distortion, and low quality of education continue to make this stage necessary. "It is impossible to have a single policy because the target groups and their demands are very different," explains Roberto Catelli from the NGO Ação Educativa.
Preventing dropout
The city of Brejo Santo, in Ceará, decided to open night classes with the specific objective of combating age-grade distortion, says the Secretary of Education, Jacqueline Braga. The idea was to have students who were not in the grade determined for their age enter classes aligned with their profile and, thus, prevent this situation from leading them to drop out of school.
The new classrooms operate in the afternoon and cater exclusively to young people who are not in the appropriate grade for their age. Maria Ingrid dos Santos, 14 years old, one of the students served by the initiative, reached the 6th grade at 13 years old. The young woman sought the acceleration class and said she was happy with the change. "I felt very strange with people aged 10, 11. I wasn't feeling well. Now I've been able to make friends and get excited about studying," she says.
Even the teachers feel the difference. "In a regular night class, there is a lot of diversity. In these classes, the rhythm flows like in a regular classroom, and the students feel it," says Allisson Bezerra, a History teacher. The intention is that, at the end of Elementary School, young people will enroll in regular High School classes and continue their educational path to follow their dreams and life projects. "I want to become a lawyer," says Maria Ingrid.
Policies for adult education
Although there is a significant demand for night classes, there are fewer and fewer government programs aimed at the modality. Enrollment has drastically reduced by 28% between 2008 and 2018, according to the Federal Bureau of Education Statistics (Inep). According to Roberto Catelli, there have been cuts and extinction of initiatives. "This culminated in the end of the secretariat for adult education at the beginning of 2018," he says.
The Secretariat of Continuing Education, Literacy, Diversity and Inclusion (Secadi) was responsible for programs related to EJA. According to the Ministry of Education, the responsibility now lies in the General Coordination of Transversal Themes and Integral Basic Education in the Secretariat of Basic Education.
As it caters to a large audience, EJA policies also contemplate this diversity. In the federal sphere, initiatives such as the National Youth Inclusion Programs (Projovem), aimed at the urban and rural population, the National Program for Access to Technical Education and Employment (Pronatec), and the National Program for Integration of Vocational Education with Basic Education in the Youth and Adult Education Modality (Proeja) were formulated to meet different needs of the public. It is still not certain how these policies will continue in the current government. According to the MEC, they will be gathered into a single policy.
Important policies, such as the National Standards (BNCC), also disregard the modality. There is only one mention in the document, which states that the BNCC should serve as a reference for states and municipalities to elaborate specific curricula. "There is a consensus among specialists that the Base does not serve entirely this public. At least more mentions to it would be necessary," defends Roberto.
Options to the districts
Outside of public education, most of the initiatives for the area are concentrated in third-sector organizations, in partnership with the public sector, and in universities. This is the case of the EJA programs at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).
"They were born at the initiative of UFMG workers, who realized that they were in a space where knowledge is built through reading and writing, but that they themselves had not completed the then first grade," says Juliana de Melo, coordinator of the second segment – equivalent to the final years of Elementary School. The teachers are scholarship students from the university's undergraduate and pedagogy courses. Weekly, they meet with educators from the Pedagogical Center to plan classes and carry out training sessions that involve various topics, including the specific characteristics of EJA, such as the heterogeneity of the classes.
"It is challenging to reconcile very different life stories and that present very different possibilities and demands for the school," says Maria da Conceição Fonseca, coordinator of the UFMG Youth and Adult Basic Education Program.
For Ana Lima, this challenge reinforces that EJA projects should be designed specifically for this group. "It is discouraging for young people or adults who have dropped out to be confronted with an identical model when they return," says the specialist. More effective formats include flexible hours, shorter shifts, and curricular proposals based on the valorization of the knowledge brought by the students and their diverse interests.
In Rio de Janeiro, at the school maintained by the Roberto Marinho Foundation, where Maria Isabela studies, the classes are conducted by work groups formed by the students themselves, with the mediation of the class teacher.
The school serves the final years of Elementary and High School, but adopts the unidocence model, characteristic of the initial years, in which the educators have annual training in the various disciplines. "Everyone has the opportunity to share their experiences, so it is very rich: the younger ones have the vision of the older ones and so on," says Professor João Brasil. "The dynamics are based on the understanding that everyone has something to teach and something to learn," says Vilma Guimarães, general manager of Education at FRM. Collaborative teaching, which values diversity, encourages students and shows them options for them to continue learning, in a model different from the one that made them give up before. "I feel like I learn a lot more here, the regular school was very individualistic and here everyone works together," shares young Maria Isabela, who wants to study Law and dreams of being a prosecutor.
Originally published by Nova Escola Online. November 2014.
Reporter: Wellington Soares, with the collaboration of Isabela Morais
Editor: Livia Perozim
Editorial Director: Leandro Beguoci
Art Director: Alice Vasconcellos
