05/14/2021
With the participation of Insper researchers Laura Muller Machado and Ricardo Paes de Barros, the book presents data and analyzes social losses caused by the high rates of school dropout in Brazil
Accessing, maintaining and completing quality basic education continue to be major challenges in Brazil. Motivated by this scenario, Insper and the Roberto Marinho Foundation teamed up to produce a study on the impacts of school dropout on Brazilian society.
Laura Muller Machado and Ricardo Paes de Barros, both Professors at Insper, in partnership with researchers Grazielly Rocha and Danielle Zanon, are now publishing the results of this study in the book Consequences of Violation of the Right to Education (availble in Portuguese, Only), which presents the social cost of lack of basic education for the youth and for the country.
The work analyzes data from different sources that show the effects that school drop-out have on employability, society’s productivity, quality of life and social violence. With this perspective, researchers seek to offer to policymakers and Brazilian society, in general, evidence of how much young people and society itself are affected by this social problem.
Click here to download the PDF version of the book Consequências da Violação do Direito à Educação
In July 2020, Canal Futura hosted an online discussion about the study being carried out, with the participation of Rodrigo Maia, then President of the Chamber of Deputies, Marcos Lisboa, President of Insper, Wilson Risolia, Secretary General of the Roberto Marinho Foundation, and Professor Ricardo Paes de Barros.
Watch the event video here:
Read below the interview with Laura Muller Machado about the release of the book:
How was the process of writing this book?
At the end of 2019, the president of the Roberto Marinho Foundation asked Ricardo Paes de Barros and me to carry out a study on the losses for our country caused by the enormous dropout rate that we have. We wanted to know what harm school drop-out does to both individuals and the country. We seek to point out the cost of this problem, to expose to the world what we are failing to gain from so many young people not finishing High School. The book is the conclusion on this proposal.
How did you collect data to support the analysis?
We set out to map out the main consequences of an adolescent not completing High School. We found in the international literature that the biggest losses are wages, with these young people earning smaller salaries when they join the labor market. There is also a loss in productivity, that is, this worker who has not completed High School produces less at work, when compared to peers who graduated High School. The young person not only loses individually, but society also ends up losing collectively.
In addition, there are losses in quality of life and there is even a relationship between school drop-out and the increase in violence. We mapped these losses, which are considered the most serious losses according to the literature and went after Brazilian estimates of the cost of each one of them.
What were the conclusions about the losses that you reached?
We understood that for each adolescent out of school, we, as a country, are not earning 395 thousand reais, while to train each of these young people the cost is around 90 thousand reais. For us, it makes no sense to allow this loss to happen. There is a discussion about the effectiveness of measures to reduce school dropouts, since there are approximately 560 thousand young people following this path per year. But our study shows that choosing not to take these steps does not make sense.
The book talks about the right to education, guaranteed by the Constitution. How is the application of this right in Brazil?
We are violating this right for 16% of young people and in this book we prove that this ends up generating a huge loss for the country. There are great benefits generated if everyone completes basic education. The violation causes an immeasurable loss, four times the cost of a complete education cycle for each young Brazilian. Even so, the right to education continues to be disrespected.
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