In March 2023, Carolina Constantini paid a visit to the city of Sobral, in Ceará Brazil, to understand from the members of its Secretary of Education exactly how it was able to achieve a literacy rate of 95% compared to a national average of 54%. The city adopted an Education Reform Program in 2007, with the two primary focuses of improving teacher training and providing additional, specialized support to schools in low-income areas (among many other strategies that proved effective). Since then, amid the disappointment of the Brazilian public education system, it has been able to prove itself as a reference case study for public education around the globe. Organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank have been to Sobral and followed the very same visit path as Carolina did in March, and Double Click’s conclusion is no different; more attention must be given to what is already working, like Sobral’s education system and the Reform Program it adopted, and an attempt to truly dissect and mimic the tactics it utilized can take us a long way. When visiting the schools, both primary and middle, it became clear that Sobral is a well-oiled machine in which all of its parts are working towards keeping every student in the classroom and, of course, learning. As Carolina was told by the Secretary of Education Herbert Lima Vasconcelos, “we make nothing more than the basic rice and beans here. The difference is, we do that really well”. All public education could be making really good rice and beans, and this needs to be a priority especially in Brazil.
Public Education
