World Bank proposals for Brazilian educational policy (2016-2018

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the proposals of the World Bank for Brazilian education policy from 2016 to 2018. To this end, we examined excerpts from four documents issued by the World Bank (2016, 2017a, 2017b, 2018), an international organization that provides loans and technical advice to member countries, as well as plays an expressive role in intellectual production, through the preparation of a set of documents that subsidize the implementation of educational policies. We found in our study a World Bank’s emphasis on state and education reform, in which the fulfillment of basic educational needs is considered as one of the fundamental variables to manage poverty levels. It would be possible through education, which promotes the acquisition of skills and competencies during the school years, to foster jobs and consequently obtain income to reduce poverty. It seems that education is conceived as a central element for alleviating the effects of poverty and promoting equity in the four World Bank documents analyzed. Education is also pointed out as one of the reasons for the inefficiency of public spending in Brazil, which tends to express an alignment with the neoliberal project of society, starting in the 1990s.