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Speech of the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the opening of the 4th World Congress of Education International
Porto Alegre, 22 July 2004
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Your Excellent Ms Mary Futrell, President of Education International,
My dear brother Tarso Genro, Minister of Education,
My dear brother, Beto Albuquerque, Federal Deputy,
My dear brother, Deputy Carlos Abicalil,
My dear sister, Deputy Maria do Rosário,
My dear sister, Deputy Neyde Aparecida,
My dear brother, Paulo Pimenta, Federal Deputy,
My dear brother, João Verle, Mayor of Porto Alegre,
My brother, João Felicio, Secretary General of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) [Central Union of Workers],
My dear brother, Fortunati,
My dear Guy Ryder, Secretary General of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU),
My dear sister, Juçara Dutra Vieira, President of Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores em Educação (CNTE) [National Confederation of Education Workers],
My dear Sir Renan Proença, President of Federação das Indústrias do estado do Rio Grande do Sul,
My dear brothers and sisters, My friends, Delegates present at the 4th World Congress of Education International,
We are here in defence of education as a primary right of human beings. It is necessary for democratic plenitude it is also a necessary condition for the social and economic development of our country.
I want to greet the delegates, observers, guests from more than 165 nations who are participating in this 4th World Congress of Education International.
I am very happy to be here and I would like to thank Education International and CNTE for choosing Brazil as the venue for this congress, especially our dear Porto Alegre, who hosts World social movements from around the globe.
UNESCO - that has as one of its goals for this millennium the universal access to primary education - indicates that 115,400,000 children are still out of school, 94% of them in sub- Saharan Africa and in the south and west regions of Asia.
In the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, if you only take into account the general data, there has been a significant growth in the access to primary school education however, we cannot say the same about the quality of teaching or of student retention.
We know for sure that education has a strategic role in the knowledge democratisation in the entire world. We also know it represents a common challenge to be overcome in each country. It requires public policies from the nation-states.
In Brazil both government and society have been trying give education the centrality it deserves.
During the past 18 months of our government, despite of not having all the resources we require, we have advanced together with the education sector in many ways. We have been attempting to overcome the illiteracy issue, a social debt our country has not managed to clear in the last century, trying to improve the quality of basic teaching and to build our university reform for the future.
In relation to the Literate Brazil Programme, we exceeded our goal for 2003 which was to introduce a literacy programme for 3 million people. We have formed agreements with 151 city councils, 17 states, 5 universities and several NGOs, reaching over 3 million youngsters and adults from 2462 municipalities. In 2004, the Programme is hoped to reach 2800 municipalities.
It is important to highlight the family allowance programme - that already benefits financially more than 4 million poor families in our country - and has also directly contributed to the literacy and education inclusion of our country.
The great success of the family allowance programme is that it is not only an income transfer programme to fight hunger but also provides resources to take care of health and education.
All mothers who have children up to the age of 14 must send them regularly to school to receive the money. And, through the programme, if the children skip classes with no justification, if the mother does not fulfil the obligation to get them to attend, she loses her right to receive financial help. That is the same for health - if a woman is pregnant, she has to take all the medical examinations required and when the baby is born it has to be given all the vaccinations the WHO recommends.
So, the programme is not only an income transfer programme, it is also a programme combined with a great dose of citizenship. We do not only deal with feeding people, but also guarantee that the people can bear the responsibility for the education and upbringing of their children. Finally, I want to say that the Family Allowance Programme is also part of the Zero Hunger Programme.
Today, we have 4200 families in the programme. In December 2004 we will have 6,5 million families and if God is with us, we will reach the all of families who are living below poverty line in Brazil - about 11 million families, 44 million people of our country.
We have already increased voluntary teachers payment from 80 to 120 Reals. The goal to be reached to get people ready and writing in 2004 is 1 million 6 hundred 50 thousand .
It is necessary to remark that those who can read and write have the opportunity to continue in education, not only at primary but also secondary level, through EJA (Educação de Jovens e Adultos - Youngsters and Adults Education Programme) benefiting more than 1 million youngsters today.
My friends, one of the essential requirements in Brazil to achieve basic teaching is about its quality. The number of places offered in education has been growing systematically, making education more accessible to children in the coming future .
What can we say about student retention in the classrooms, the dropout rate and the quality of teaching?
Next November, the Ministry of Education will evaluate all the public schools in Brazil.
Despite of the known budget limitations, I always reassure and say to the minister, Tarso Genro, that money will be no problem if it is to create and implement new programmes for the qualification of our teachers and education.
Our goal for 2004 is to prepare 80% of the teachers at primary school level from 19 states of the north, northeast and central western regions. Almost 100,000 teachers will be assisted with training programmes set up and agreed between the state secretaries and the minister of education.
With the project of the national network of education development and research centres, we are offering the life-long training of teachers through agreements with 20 universities in Brazil, selected through evaluation.
Our government is also promoting a national debate concerning the proposal of the creation and implementation of FUNDEB (Fundo de Manutenção e Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica - Basic Education Development and Maintenance Fund) - through the creation of regional collectives, getting together the civil society, particularly representatives of all the Brazilian education sectors.
As our Minister Tarso Genro remarked, this Fund is going to improve teaching in terms of quality, including children's education, the primary school and secondary school. The final project might be finished within a few weeks.
Next year, we are planning to install at least 500 schools within factories which will operate within the companies at a professional level.
I am going to mention here two projects put before the national congress: the special placement reservation system for students who were in public schools, in which we are adopting affirmative actions to overcome black people's social exclusion, and also to give better opportunities to indigenous peoples in our country.
Also, the University For All Programme, designed to grant integral scholarships to poor students in private universities so that they receive subsidies or exemption of fees from the government.
My friends,
All the measures are being taken through an intense and permanent dialogue with the civil society, through public audiences, negotiation tables and forums that count on the determined and direct participation of all sectors of Brazilian education.
I want to announce, today, a project that in our opinion will be revolutionary.
MEC will soon present, to the states and municipalities, a proposal of truancy control of children in school through a digital registration system. This registration will permit that, at the end of the day, each mayor, governor, and even the president of Brazil, as well as the minister of education, can find out how many students attended school on that day. With this there will be an improvement in planning conditions as well as an immediate intervention on schools where there is seen to be a problem, which may help deter low attendance.
The 4th EI World Congress - and the 3rd World Social Forum - are extraordinary opportunities not only to debate but also to experience, exchange and define the directions that will orient the workers in education all over the world.
I want, before wishing good luck to all delegates, to tell you how happy I am to be in a trade union meeting of this magnitude.
I am happy because, as elected president of Brazil, now we have the opportunity to realise the dreams that countries in the developing world can prepare themselves to compete with the developed world and be able to become exporters of knowledge and not only exporters of primary products and raw material.
Without investing in education we will not have the possibility to be part of such competition. There is not, in the history of humanity, any country that could improve quality without having had belief in investment in education.
Any cent that is applied to education today has to be understood by the governments of the world as an investment in the future of the new generations, in the future of the country and in the possibility of the country to develop.
I would like to end by adding that this week I had the opportunity to meet a 13-year old boy who is about to gain his Masters in mathematics and a 17-year old boy who already has a masters and a doctorate in mathematics.
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