The literacy of children at the right age, between 6 and 7 years old, is considered a fundamental step to overcoming barriers and challenges to the full development of the Amazon. For experts, teaching boys and girls living in the biome to read and write, in addition to fulfilling a rights agenda, provides preparation for the full experience of citizenship and is one of the crucial ways to avoid perpetuating poverty and social inequalities in the region.
Despite the obstacles that the geographical structure and context of the Amazon impose, with rivers often replacing the streets, and great distances of displacement, offering quality basic education has generated encouraging results for the population: the more than R$ 222 million invested by the Ministério da Educação (MEC) [Ministry of Education] in the biome between June 2023 and May 2024, both in physical and pedagogical infrastructure, training and evaluations, reached about 1.8 million children with complementary materials to support literacy.
The data are part of the first results of the Compromisso Nacional Criança Alfabetizada [National Commitment Literate Child], an initiative of the federal government, in partnership with states and municipalities, which aims to ensure the teaching of reading and writing complete by the end of the 2nd year of elementary school in public schools. 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade children affected by the COVID-19 pandemic came into the focus of the program. In the Amazon, the largest investments are in Maranhão, R$ 54 million; in Amazonas, R$ 52 million; and in Pará, R$ 44 million – States that also emerge with many literate students at the right age.
Total transfers included the development of local literacy policies, the construction of reading places in schools, and the training of managers and teachers. More than 536 thousand students from the nine states that are part of the biome – Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, and Tocantins – were evaluated to obtain the results of the region. The goals of the Compromisso Nacional Criança Alfabetizada [National Commitment Literate Children] for 2024 now define the new directions that should be followed to leverage education.
Challenges
The numbers are considered a good start, but there is still much to be done to combat the hindrances present in the teaching of writing and reading. According to Júlia Ribeiro, Education Officer of the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), the lack of literacy of children at the right age affects the entire school trajectory, opening doors to underemployment and not exercising full citizenship. And in this sense, a great challenge is identified: to keep these boys and girls in the places of learning. She adds that "this age group is the second largest group of those who are not in schools".
This scenario raises concern about the maintenance of socioeconomic statistics of the biome. "When we talk about literacy, it is essential to have a preamble about how much it should be considered the priority of priorities, because a literate child, who can read texts, stories, signs on the street, medicine packages, food in supermarkets, is a child inserted in the world that we have. Giving this possibility of citizenship to them will have an impact on school development and life", says Júlia.
Active search maps children who are out of school
One of the tactics created by Unicef to combat school dropout and boost literacy rates in the Amazon is active search. For seven years, a social methodology has been used that makes use of a platform to list guidelines to support States and cities in identifying children who are out of school. With this, the entity maps the reasons that lead to this reality, implementing programs and proposing public policies that aim to guarantee the re-enrollment of students.
"The strategy seeks to adapt to the reality of the territory. The government official decides on the strategy and whether to work with the reality of the cities and what support is available. [The active search] goes from crossing records to identify them [the students], as well as knocking from door to door", explains Júlia Ribeiro. The most different ways are adopted to reach children who are out of school. "Community Health agents, who ask this initial question, considering the reality of the Amazon, visits to reference centers and social assistance, school techniques that make this home visit", completes the Unicef representative.
The invisibility of the biome is reflected in education
Amazonian early childhood education, as pointed out by Professor Marilena Loureiro, leader of the group of studies and research in education, culture, and environment of the Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos da Universidade Federal do Pará (Naea/UFPA) [Nucleus of High Amazon Studies of the Federal University of Pará], is unfeasible. The researcher points out that the numbers from the national commitment to literate children, although they demonstrate an advance, also reveal the distances in which this field is still. "And this is very correlated to a process of invisibility of the region, from the point of view of its needs, realities, economic and social formations, and diversity".
"The treatment that public or educational policy directs to the Amazon problem cannot be maintained in a line of homogenization, as if we were equal; we must consider our diversity, dilemmas, and difficulties that education systems continue to have in terms of being able to expand this offer and in a qualitative way – because that is another concern. It is not just about increasing children's access to education in quantitative terms. We need to expand, to the same extent, the condition of permanence, and permanence with quality", adds Loureiro.
Reasons
The misunderstanding of the problem that is being faced, when it comes to the literacy of children in the Amazon, is highlighted by the teacher as one of the main reasons that must be fought to improve teaching offers – a factor that remains weakening early childhood education. "[This] implies a fragile Elementary School, a fragile high school... as long as the Brazilian government, in the various spheres, does not develop conditions for this process to be fully effective, we will keep running in circles without being able, in fact, to advance".
Literacy in Pará considers regional diversity
The literacy rate in Pará, in 2023, stood at 48%. The state is one of the most important in the biome and has made use of the regional diversity of the Amazon in books and teaching materials, allied to a common scientific base for all, to develop students' reading and writing. The total investments that the Secretaria de Estado de Educação (Seduc) [Secretary of State for Education] made, since the beginning of the program in the context of the Compromisso Nacional Criança Alfabetizada [National Commitment Literate Child] – Alfabetiza Pará –, was R$ 60 million. By the end of 2024, about R$ 80 million should be used.
The federal government's goal for Pará is for 54% of children to be literate by the end of 2024. Rossieli Silva, head of Seduc, says that the action is being taken together with the cities to achieve all purposes. "This is unprecedented. We call it a collaboration regime. There is no point in the state growing but the cities don't. It is important that all children are literate. We started printing literacy material for all networks. What is done for our teachers, is done for the municipal networks".
School reinforcement
With the results, the folder saw that it was possible to accelerate the literacy process in the state. Thus, Bora Alfabetizar program was created. "[We started] the process of hiring teachers for school reinforcement, both after-hours and on weekends; if there is demand, we authorize this hiring. [We have] a strong monitoring process, we have created a structure in the secretary, an area that takes care of the 1st to 5th grade, with pedagogical monitoring technicians who visit schools weekly to see if they are complying [with the proposals]", concludes Rossieli.
A diagnosis of students is essential
Every beginning of the school year, the Escola Estadual de Ensino Fundamental Presidente Castelo Branco [Presidente Castelo Branco State Elementary School], located in the Val-de-Cans neighborhood of Belém, capital of Pará, conducts a diagnostic process for students of literacy age. The goal is to identify their reading and writing difficulties so that the work is better directed. Katy Tavares, 2nd grade teacher, explains that this phase is a priority for the progress of all work at the institution. "It is joint work, but we pay attention to that child who needs support", she says.
Katy's classes are interdisciplinary and use pedagogical games, daily reading wheels, bingos of syllabic formations, and note-making. "Reading broadens knowledge, it is a journey. Providing students with this knowledge expands their vocabulary, and makes students aware, questioners, and respectful, however, many students only have this contact at school, unfortunately, it is our social reality... they are citizens and have rights and is the reading that provides for them to know their own rights", the teacher concludes.
Family
The school promotes pedagogical shifts to involve students' families in literacy. For Katy, however, this is still a major obstacle in the formation of students. "The biggest challenge is the family socio-economic issue. This question greatly interferes with the child's learning. She absorbs all this and ends up bringing it to the classroom. In the classroom, we are teachers, psychologists... we must have a broad look, observe that child, if he or she is discouraged, what happened... Then this family base is fundamental for the school. It's a union, it must go hand in hand", he says.
2023 results of the National Commitment Literate Child
In The Country:
Brazil - 56%
In the Amazonian States*:
Amapá - 42%
Amazonas - 52%
Maranhão - 56%
Mato Grosso - 55%
Pará - 48%
Rondonia - 65%
Tocantins - 44%
*Acre and Roraima did not make state assessments in 2023
Source: MEC
Institutional Partnership
The production of Liberal Amazon is one of the initiatives of the Technical Cooperation Agreement between the Liberal Group and the Federal University of Pará. The articles involving research from UFPA are revised by professionals from the academy. The translation of the content is also provided by the agreement, through the research project ET-Multi: Translation Studies: multifaces and multisemiotics.
