Quality of Educational Provision and Learning Inequality in Brazilian Elementary and Middle School

Abstract

In the last decades, there was a more significant concern with educational quality than towards actions to combat inequality in the public Brazilian agenda due to the broad use of Ideb (Basic Education Development Index). However, studies have pointed out that equity did not follow quality, hindering constitutional principles. In this sense, we investigate the relationship between the educational provision indicators and the measure of learning quality and equity in elementary and middle school. Using data from Brazilian public schools retrieved from School Census, Saeb (Basic Education Evaluation System), demographic, investment data from IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) and Siope (Information System on Public Budgets in Education), we could observe that the indicators of educational provision are more closely connected to quality than equity and that more populated cities tend to have quality with less equity. We note a North/South pattern in the country, with more equitable situations in the North and Northeast states, while higher quality situations are observed in the South and Southeast states. Situations portraying more quality with equity are rare in Brazilian cities but were proportionally higher in Ceará. The results indicate that more objective and specific policies are needed to guarantee a quality education with equity. This guarantee is a right for all and is even more relevant in a post-pandemic scenario marked by more profound learning gaps and educational inequalities.