Brazil has one of the largest textbook distribution programs in the world, second only to China. For eight decades, the federal government has been buying and distributing school books to more than 140,000 educational institutions and 35 million students. In 2023 alone, more than BRL 1.5 billion (USD 303 million) was spent on the program.
Given its size, one can imagine how attractive the textbook distribution program is to the publishers who produce the procured materials. But some companies have found loopholes to circumvent the law and grab an even bigger share of the public money up for grabs as part of the scheme.
Before explaining the scandal, it is important to understand how the National Textbook Program (PNLD) works.
Each year, books for each grade level — from kindergarten to high school — are replaced, as part of a rolling four-year cycle. The Education Ministry publishes official notices specifying the characteristics of the textbooks it intends to purchase.
Publishers produce books that meet the government’s specifications and apply for the procurement contract. A technical committee evaluates which ones are suitable for use in classrooms. Teachers then receive a “menu” of all the approved works and can choose the ones they want to use with their students during the school year.
Only then does the government negotiate with publishers to determine which publications will be purchased and in what quantities. The more teachers who choose a particular collection of books, the more money the publisher who created it makes.
To curry favor with teachers, many companies opt to use guerrilla marketing techniques, offering educators giveaways, gifts, and dinners, investing in one-on-one relationships, and even going so far as to steal books from competing publishers, according to several reports obtained by The Brazilian Report.
The PNLD’s regulations prohibit companies with books registered in the program from “offering benefits of any kind at any time to people or institutions associated with the PNLD.”
It also prohibits gifts and giveaways, lectures and advertising in schools, and anything else that indicates favoritism or pressure for the school to adopt its materials during the PNLD textbook selection phase.
But almost nobody follows these rules, claims Fernando Cássio, a teacher at the University of São Paulo and a researcher of public policies in education.
“There is a group of large publishers that dominate the market. They have been doing this kind of lobbying every year for a long, long time,” he says. “If you look at the PNLD spreadsheets, you see that we are talking about billions of reais. It is a very profitable business.”
According to official reports obtained through freedom of information legislation, the Brazilian government investigated seven cases of lobbying by publishers in schools between 2019 and 2023. Another four are still under scrutiny.
The Brazilian Report had access to the records of each case. They contain solid evidence of illegal acts, with photos of gifts sent to teachers, videos of dinners funded by publishers, copies of emails, text messages, and several witness accounts.
Nevertheless, all the cases were closed for alleged lack of proof.
In one of the cases, the publisher Moderna itself confirmed that it had brought book authors to lecture teachers from four cities in three states (Rio de Janeiro, Paraná, and Minas Gerais). The company denied that the lectures had anything to do with the PNLD; the schools ended up choosing the author’s books. After an investigation, the government issued only a warning and no punishment.
In another case, representatives of the publishers FTD and Moderna allegedly organized lectures, distributed books and flash drives as gifts, and even gave free courses to teachers in the city of Sertãozinho, in the state of São Paulo. One of the speakers, the author of a book offered in the PNLD, explicitly “asked the teachers on several occasions to choose his material.”
In the end, these books were chosen. Again, the government only issued warnings to those responsible. The investigation was then shelved.
The Brazilian Report interviewed teachers, school principals, and publishing consultants, who also reported encountering very similar practices in their everyday work. They chose to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, but provided evidence to substantiate their claims. Some of them are shown in this article.
What they all said in common was that publisher lobbying is extremely widespread, to the point that many of them didn’t even know it was illegal.
In practice, the goal of the large publishers is to guarantee the monopoly of the large PNLD market while keeping out competition from smaller publishers. The same companies have dominated the program in recent years.
A statement signed by eight small publishers in 2021 and sent to the government says that “just five publishing groups participating in the PNLD account for 95 percent of all books chosen.” The Comptroller General’s Office opened an investigation to “detect signs of irregularities,” but there have been no results so far.
What we found
A video obtained by The Brazilian Report shows an employee of Saber Educação, part of the Cogna Group — the largest education group in Brazil — with a sample box of educational materials from another publisher.
“Guys, look what I found in a school,” he says, showing a red box with the words “Choose the best – PNLD 2024.” Inside, he shows an invoice from a competing publisher and catalogs sent to the school. The geography catalog contained a world map for teachers to put up in their classrooms. “Look at this shameless lot. Let’s keep an eye out. Let’s fight them, guys.”
We have blurred all images in this piece to protect our sources.
The video was sent to a WhatsApp group of Saber consultants. According to those in the group, the words “let’s fight them” were intended to encourage others to hide or steal sample boxes and books from other schools, “as it was a threat to the publishers Ática, Saraiva, and Scipione,” all of which are part of the Saber group.
Another photo sent by the same employee shows the trunk of his car full of books from other publishers that he took from schools without permission. “I can barely fit them all in the car, LOL,” he wrote to his colleagues.
“Looks like you’ve been fighting at this school before,” one of his colleagues replied. The person who stole the books commented with a shushing face emoji, a sign that it should be kept secret.
When informally asked by a colleague why he stole the books, the employee reportedly said that one of his superiors had asked him to “study the competition” and that “he was from the time when people got new cars in the PNLD.”
The information is contained in an anonymous complaint sent to the company’s compliance department, which was obtained by The Brazilian Report. According to the complaint, the action took place in six rural schools in the state of Minas Gerais in July, while the deadline for teachers to choose PNLD books was still running.
According to the complaint, Saber’s consultants were also instructed to register teachers’ emails in a database for the purpose of later sending materials, samples, and invitations to training sessions. This was done without the teachers’ consent, in violation of Brazil’s privacy law.
“At the beginning of PNLD campaigns, publishers try to collect as many registrations as possible from teachers, principals, coordinators, and everyone involved in the process,” one consultant told us. “We took some contacts we had from past PNLDs and put them into the system, but without the acceptance or consent of the people involved.”
He showed us a flier given to teachers, containing a QR code to register for samples and invitations to events.
In 2023’s PNLD cycle, the three publishers associated with Saber (Ática, Scipione and Saraiva) will receive BRL 287,448,821.83 (around USD 59 million) from the federal government. The contracts were signed in October.
Consultants who manage to persuade many schools to adopt their publishers’ materials usually receive an attractive commission on the sales. One of them, interviewed by The Brazilian Report, said he would receive BRL 53,000 for having succeeded in more than 100 schools.
“The commission per sale is the biggest attraction for us. If we achieve a good market share, the companies usually pay us a huge amount in February of the following year, when the Education Ministry pays the publishers,” he explained.
Regarding the case, Cogna said that “it has a confidential investigation channel and is already providing due treatment to this complaint received. At the end of the investigation, if necessary, the company will take all the necessary measures.”
The company also said that “its internal policies and guidelines are in accordance with Resolution 15 of the PNLD rules, which does not allow the offering of any type of benefit, be it a gift or dinner, in exchange for any advantage in offering its products.”
But the scheme doesn’t only happen with teachers. Mr. Cássio, a teacher himself, says he has already seen a lot of municipal and state education departments enjoying the free gifts and fancy dinners. “It’s sometimes used as a way to beef up salaries, which are generally very low.”
“And there is no control, no oversight, no punishment. I have never heard of any kind of reprimand for those who do it,” he says.
The Brazilian Report had access to transcripts of conversations showing that representatives of the publishing house Moderna invited education officials from a small municipality in Minas Gerais (which will not be named at the request of those interviewed) to dinner at a high-end pizzeria.
“Good morning! I’m inviting some people from City Hall to a meeting at [name of pizzeria]. Check with the girls and boys if they can go […] I’m waiting for confirmation,” said the message sent by the Moderna employee.
One of the municipal employees tried to get advice from a superior about how to respond to the invitation. “We received an invitation from the Moderna people to go to a pizzeria. What are the rules, is it okay?” he asked, in an audio message.
Not knowing what to do, some City Hall employees and teachers went to the pizzeria, but the dinner didn’t take place, according to them, because the team leader, who was in contact with the Moderna representative, didn’t confirm it in time.
The invitation came just weeks before the final deadline for teachers to select their books for the PNLD. According to teachers in the municipality, other publishers also visited schools, brought samples, and tried to convince teachers that their materials were better than others — which is also prohibited.
Another teacher, who works in schools in small communities in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, told The Brazilian Report that last year he also attended “lectures” organized by Moderna during the PNLD selection phase.
In response, Moderna said it “vehemently denies any irregular practice by teachers in the selection of books as part of the PNLD. The publisher does not offer benefits in exchange for the approval or selection of its materials, nor does it have any record of any approach with schools and teachers of an irregular nature.”
The publisher also guarantees that “all the company’s commercial and pedagogical guidance is within the rules of the program and is aimed at informing educators about the characteristics of its works and the best ways to use the resources in the classroom.”
In the 2023 PNLD cycle, Moderna will receive BRL 260,982,190.11 from the federal government.
In August, the Education Ministry published a “regulation of conduct within the scope of the PNLD.” The document extends the prohibition on receiving benefits from companies within the program to government employees and tightens the code of conduct for publishers’ employees.
Failure to comply with the rules may result in penalties ranging from a written warning to a fine of up to five percent of the educational resources of the state where the violation occurred, in addition to compensation for the damage caused. The fine must be at least one percent of the contract value.
Publishers’ representatives can also have their participation in the PNLD suspended for up to ten years.
The Brazilian Report contacted the Education Ministry for comment on these cases but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.