Brazil to train 310 thousand literacy educators this year

Brazil's Ministry of Education (MEC) announced it will invest $102.2 million in the training of 310 thousand literacy educators across the country by the end of this year.

The initiative is part of a recently revamped National Program for Literacy at the Right Age (PNAIC, in the Portuguese original), designed to bring literacy professionals to the group of learning advisers.

The PNAIC aims at ensuring all public school students are literate in Portuguese and Mathematics by the end of the third grade in elementary school, as dictated by the National Education Plan. According to the ministry, however, official figures from a countrywide survey conducted in 2014 reveal that a mere 11% of children are fully capable of reading at the appropriate age.

The Education Ministry further declared a management committee was formed for the plan whose job will be to strengthen the responsibility of regional, state, and local frameworks in setting targets and keeping actions under close scrutiny.

In this new version of the program, the minister says, pedagogical projects will be implemented with a view to benefiting literacy educators “who stand out for their creativity, problem solving skills, technology use in education, active methodology in bringing together theory and practice.”

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira