Juan Forero/WASHINGTON POST - OSASCO, BRAZIL - Flavia Witzel, 28, a kindergarten teacher, had been educated at the Bradesco school.
OSASCO, Brazil — This country prides itself on being a rising economic power, ever more a player in global commerce.
But many Brazilians question whether the lackluster public education system, which struggles to educate 50 million children, can churn out enough well-prepared young adults so that Brazil can continue to compete with the likes of China and South Korea.
(Juan Forero/WASHINGTON POST) - OSASCO, BRAZIL - In a modern science lab at the Bradesco school, Antonio Ghilard taught eighth graders how to tell the differences between chemical and physical reactions.
So when Heloiza Silveira heard about openings at a local academy, tuition-free, she got in line at 3 a.m. with a gaggle of hopeful parents and won a coveted spot for her boy, Rafael, 5.
The school is run by the philanthropic arm of Brazil’s second-largest bank, Bradesco, which had offered 100 slots to the neediest families here in Osasco, an industrial suburb of Sao Paulo.
“I think he now has a future,” Silveira said, giggling with delight as she recalled her boy’s admission in January.
All across Brazil, companies and their foundations, among them Bradesco, are running schools, developing new teaching methodologies or improving school management.
Those offering a complete education for free have limited slots and financing, their offerings amounting to a “drop in the ocean” in terms of Brazil’s educational needs, as an Education Ministry spokeswoman put it.
But for many parents, the growing involvement of industry in education is a hopeful sign, one that is revealing in what it says about the state of public education in Brazil.
Although a 2007 Harvard University study found that some programs were hard to assess and, in some cases, wasteful, the broad scope of private involvement in education is gaining attention as Brazilians become increasingly conscious of the need to improve classroom instruction.
The companies taking the lead are among the motors of Brazil’s economy.
There is the steel maker Gerdau, the meatpacker JBS and the aircraft manufacturer Embraer, which runs a high school for 600 students. There are also smaller firms. Porto Seguro, an insurance company, adopted two public schools and improved their management.
“I would say thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of companies are involved,” said Fernando Rossetti, who directs a group of foundations and companies that run educational programs. “Brazil, as it globalizes and its economy becomes more sophisticated, needs a much more educated labor force.”
Priscila Cruz, director of All For Education, a Sao Paulo policy group, said the initiatives by the companies, estimated at $1 billion a year, underscore “a silent crisis in education here in Brazil.”
Some of the statistics collected by her organization are grim: Only 58 percent of children finish high school. Of those finishing high school, only 25 percent have learned what they should have in Portuguese-language studies. For math, it is even worse: 11 percent.
Brazilian students came out at the bottom in reading, math and science when their scores were compared with those of children in 65 other countries, according to the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment.
But there are some improvements.
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