The city of Rio de Janeiro, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is trying to locate at least 25,000 students who have not returned to public schools in the capital since October, despite being enrolled.
In addition to the whole problem involving connectivity – since many children do not even have access to a computer with a network – Mayor Eduardo Paes believes that these students entered the labor market during the Covid-19 pandemic to supplement the family budget and they ended up leaving the classrooms.
Through a platform developed by UNICEF, employees of the Education, Health and Social Welfare departments actively search for these children.
Nationally, the increase in school dropout rates as a result of the pandemic could delay Brazil by two decades, according to UNICEF. A survey by the United Nations Children’s Fund shows that more than 5 million young people did not have access to education in Brazil in 2020 – a number similar to what the country had twenty years ago.
Our schools were closed for 50 weeks. And school exclusion mainly affected children between 6 and 10 years of age. Of the 5.1 million girls and boys without access to education in November 2020, 41% were in this age group. 27.8% were between 11 and 14 years old and 31.2% were over 15 years old.
“Children aged 6 to 10 without access to education were an exception in Brazil, before the pandemic. This observed change can have impacts across a generation. They are children from the early years of elementary school, literacy and other learning essential to other school stages. Incomplete literacy cycles can lead to school failure and dropout. It is urgent to reopen the schools, and keep them open, safe”, defends Florence Bauer, UNICEF representative in Brazil.
In the city of Rio, in order to try to locate these 25,000 young people who should be studying, the search has been carried out through a platform called ‘Busca Ativa Escolar’. The program allows the monitoring of information about each student enrolled in the capital of Rio de Janeiro and shares the information with the municipality.
“We have about 25,000 students that we observe who did not return to face-to-face teaching, when we went back to face-to-face teaching. These are children who have gone to the job market, or their families are not paying attention. So we partnered with Unicef to actively search beyond for the next few years,” Paes told CNN.
According to the municipal secretary of Education in the capital of Rio de Janeiro, Renan Ferreirinha, the priority right now is to win back these students for the next school year, as well as ensure enrollment for those who are out of schools.
He claims that teaching units need to be the first to open and the last to close during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The main focus is on combating school dropouts, making all our students go back to school, a place for learning, welcoming, adequate food. We have to rescue every student who stayed away, mainly because of the pandemic”, he said.
“And UNICEF has a fundamental role in this through its platform, which has helped us a lot. We know that there are several social factors that make children drop out of school, and the period in which schools were closed greatly worsened the rates. For this reason, we act strategically to bring each of the students back.”, added the Education secretary.
Reference: CNN Brasil
