Right to education in Brazil and the educational debt: what if the people actually demanded it?

Abstract

We start by considering the right to Education within the framework of the fundamental human rights, and the ensuing concept of educational debt, which follows from the failure to enforce the subjective public right of each citizen to a complete Fundamental Education as established by the 1988 Brazilian Constitution. Based on the 2000 census information on the number of years of schooling successfully concluded, we estimate that in that year the Brazilian State owed to the 119.6 million people aged fifteen years or more the astronomical sum of 325.5 million years of study not accomplished at their proper time - an average of almost three years per person. We also calculate the investment in terms of teachers and classrooms/shift-year necessary to settle this debt. We also show that the debt estimated from the National Survey by Household Sampling 2005 (316.4 million years of study) represents a very small reduction with respect to the 2000 Census. Lastly, we deal with the question of the actors or agents of the effectiveness of the right to Education and of the instruments of accountability place at their disposal by the legislation. The article concludes by affirming the great challenge put before society in general and educators in particular of producing in the simple folk the awareness that they effectively have a right to Education, and that they have the means of demanding their fulfillment by the State.