Brazil’s poor students make up majority and show lowest reading skills
Students with lower socio-economic status perform more poorly in reading, and almost half of them have a learning level considered below basic. In Brazil, while 83.9 percent of fourth-graders with higher incomes have access to adequate learning for reading, only one in four (26.1%) of the poorest pupils reach this level.
Experts from Brazil’s nonprofit Interdisciplinarity and Evidence in the Educational Debate (IEDE) reached this conclusion after analyzing microdata from the exam entitled Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).
PIRLS was first conducted in Brazil in 2021, and the overall results were published in 2023 along with those of 65 other nations and regions worldwide. Now, the researchers seek to understand how Brazil’s inequalities keep pupils away from adequate reading performance. According to the nonprofit, the study’s data show the country’s vast educational inequality and demonstrate how learning is affected by learners’ socio-economic status.
In Brazil, only five percent of students have a high socio-economic status. They come from families with a monthly income of BRL 15 thousand (some USD 2,600) and are the top readers.
The majority (64%), however, are not so favored. Their families live on less than BRL 4 thousand (approximately USD 700) a month. Among them are the worst performers in reading. Another 31 percent have an average social-economic status.
The gap between the high- and low-income groups in Brazil stands at 58 percentage points—the widest among the countries with these data available. Behind Brazil, in second place, are the United Arab Emirates, with a gap of 52 percentage points, followed by Hungary and the French region of Belgium, with 51.
The exam
The exam is istered every five years by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Brazil first took part in the study in 2021, with a sample of schools from across the country.
Over 4,900 fourth-graders were tested. Taking into all the nations participating in the study, approximately 400 thousand students were assessed in more than 13 thousand schools across 57 countries.
The assessment was made possible by Brazil’s National Institute for Educational Studies and Research with 187 schools, public and private, spread across all regions of Brazil. Over 4,900 fourth-graders were assessed. Taking into all the nations participating in the study, approximately 400 thousand pupils were assessed in more than 13 thousand schools across 57 countries.
Adequate learning
The experts consider consider intermediate to be the lowest adequate level of learning, as they argue that this is where students have sufficient skills for further reading and personal development.
This threshold, however, is nowhere near the poorest students’ reach. Of students from the lowest socio-economic level, virtually half (49%) are below basic. Among pupils with middle and high socio-economic status, this percentage drops to 16 percent. For IEDE’s founding Director Ernesto Martins Faria, the results are a wake-up call.
“It’s not that there isn’t good learning in Brazil—there is, but only for a few. This must be of great concern to us. Why is there a small group that manages to reach a level of learning that is competitive at international level, and why, when we look at low-income [students], is the learning situation so complicated, with many students not even reaching basic level?”
How important is reading?
The general results of the latest edition of the study were released in 2023 and showed that almost 40 percent of Brazilian fourth-graders do not master basic reading skills—i.e. they have difficulties retrieving and reproducing information stated in a given text. Reading skills, Faria noted, are the drivers of autonomy for students across various school subjects.
“When we talk about reading, we’re not talking about a specific subject. We’re talking about a basic skill—akin to Math or problem solving. Through reading, you can develop various skills. This is also true for Portuguese, for the social sciences, for natural sciences—and it’s also crucial for kids to be able to live well in society and thrive,” he said.
