A study by the Malala Fund pointed out that the school exclusion rate in Brazil has increased dramatically since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In an interview with CNNthe doctor in education and member of the Malala Fund’s Network of Education Activists in Brazil, Cleo Manhas, assessed that inequality increased during this period.
“We are 11 activists from different organizations that make up the Malala Fund and we can see that girls have greater responsibilities,” he said.
Among them, for example, are domestic activities and even outside the home. “Allied to this, problems with access to the internet caused them to miss many classes and ended up dropping out of school”.
The specialist analyzed that there is no action plan by the Ministry of Education “to actively search for those who have not returned to school”: “We have a complicated reality that is difficult to map because we have now learned in recent days that there is a lack of access to data from the school census”.
Cleo defends the adoption of a national action plan and more investment in budgetary and infrastructure resources for schools, with the aim of minimizing the effects of the pandemic.
“The reality of public schools is that they are overcrowded and lack the infrastructure to receive students during the pandemic and resolve in-depth issues,” he said. “The burden of responsibility falls in different ways between girls and boys, there are leftover functions of care for girls, such as younger siblings, taking care of the house, they are the most vulnerable to teenage pregnancy, it falls more heavily on girls and black women, our inequalities have deepened,” he added.
Source: CNN Brasil
