Brazil’s education sector faces multiple existential threats

High school-level education is one of the main bottlenecks in the Brazilian educational system, due to high dropout rates and low student performance. Despite supposedly preparing youth for university (and, to some extent, the job market), Brazil’s high school curriculum presents students with outdated subjects that have little or nothing to do with the practicalities of real life.

There are many lines of discussion on how to improve the system. But a common premise unites them all: something needs to change.

To this aim, the administration of former president Michel Temer passed a major overhaul of the high school system in 2016, confirmed by Congress the following year. 

It was an ambitious and well-intentioned project, but poorly planned. And it’s been the target of criticism ever since.

In recent weeks, students and teachers in at least 50 cities across the country have protested against the new system, known by its acronym NEM, which began to be implemented last year and should be fully in force in 2024.

In light of this impasse, the Education Ministry decided to suspend the NEM implementation process for 60 days with the aim of re-discussing or even revoking the project altogether. “We recognize that there was no in-depth dialogue on its implementation, there was no coordination on the part of the ministry,” Education Minister Camilo Santana said.

The changes brought in by the new system

The NEM model is similar to the North American High School system. The idea is that students can choose most of their subjects according to their own interests or the career they are planning to follow — within so-called “training itineraries.” There are four major areas: languages, mathematics, biological sciences, and human sciences.

Mandatory subjects have been limited to just three: Portuguese, mathematics, and foreign languages. All other subjects on the curriculum, such as chemistry, arts, and sociology, saw their number of required hours reduced or even scrapped. 

The new system increases the number of hours spent in school from 2,400 to 3,000 hours a year. But almost half of these, or 40 percent, are filled with elective subjects. These electives can vary from school to school, with no overarching framework on what can and can’t be taught.

A recent survey shows that there are more than 1,500 options being offered to high school students across the country — and a large chunk of them would not usually...