ANTONIO CRUZ/ABRStarted a mere four years ago, the Olimpíada Brasileira de Matemática das Escolas Públicas/Obmep, Math Olympics, has already produced a positive impact on the performance of math students in Brazil. A study conducted by researchers from the University of São Paulo and Banco Itaú Unibanco showed that 9th grade students participating in the Olympics achieved 2.14 points more on average in the mathematics test of the Prova Brasil exam, which evaluates reading and math skills, in comparison to students from schools that had not participated in this event. The impact is most significant on schools that have participated several times in the annual Olympics, and on students with higher academic performance.
The study also emphasized the likely economic return of this initiative. The improvement of math skills as a result of the training for the Olympics will probably allow these students to obtain up to 0.30% higher salaries when they enter the job market. This percentage figure might not seem very high, but the total sum of the increase in participants’ salaries until the end of their professional careers was estimated at R$ 901 million. “This event seems to be a good investment in terms of public policies because the related costs are relatively low and the number of beneficiaries is high,” says Naercio Aquino de Menezes-Filho, a professor at USP’s School of Economics, Business and Accounting and at Insper Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa institute, who coordinated the study with Lígia Vasconcellos and Roberta Biondi from Itaú Unibanco.
Obmep has been held since 2005, thanks to a partnership with the Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada/Impa, Math Institute from Rio de Janeiro, the Sociedade Brasileira de Matemática, Brazilian Math Society, and the Ministries of Education and of Science and Technology. The fifth Olympics, held this year, had 19 million participants, nearly double the number of participants in 2005. The objective of the event is to encourage the study of math at public schools, identify young talent and encourage the on-going improvement of teachers. Obmep was structured to have an influence on daily school activities. A handout with math questions and solutions, prepared by mathematicians connected to Obmep, is forwarded to the teachers of the participating schools. “This is high-quality, challenging material, which puts the school in contact with the best of the mathematics community,” says César Camacho, general director of Impa.
The event is divided into two phases. The first phase is held and corrected at the participating schools. The best 5% students of this phase go on to the next phase. Three thousand students with the best performance are granted scholarships for science studies. The idea of preparing an economic evaluation of Obmep’s impact was proposed by economist Sérgio Werlang, executive vice-president of Itaú Unibanco. He was a member of the board of directors of Impa and, impressed by the scope of the Olympics, suggested that a methodology of economic and social impact evaluation, as used by the Fundação Itaú Social foundation, be applied to the referred study. This methodology measures the results of projects conducted by non-governmental organizations.
Methodology
The study estimated the impact of the Olympics on the average math grades of public school students taking the Prova Brasil exam. Since 2005, the Prova Brasil evaluates the reading and math skills of elementary students from the 5th to the 9th grades. The methodology selected data from 22,703 schools whose 9th grade students had participated in the Obmep and in the Prova Brasil in 2007, comparing them with a control group comprised of 1,756 schools that had not participated in the Olympics. The data was dealt with in a way that allowed for a comparison of schools with similar characteristics, to take advantage of the existence of information such as the student profiles and the educational level of teachers and principals. The grade-related difference corresponded to 7,44 points, which, after it was weighted, dropped to 2,14 points. The exam’s grade scale ranges from 0 to 500 points and the average grade of the participating schools ranged from 178 to 306 points. The gain of 2,14 points leads to an increase in the Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica/Ideb, Basic Educational Development Index in the scope of the participants. This increase goes up from 3,5 to 3,6 points (on a scale of 0 to 10), above the goal established by the government for 2009 and comes close to the index expected in 2011.
The researchers also decided to evaluate whether the number of participants in this event increased the impact. The schools were divided into three groups: one group comprised the schools that had only participated in 2007; the other group comprised schools that had participated twice and the third group comprised schools that had participated three times. The groups were then compared to schools that had not participated in the Obmep. The results showed that among the schools that had only participated once, the average was 0,76 points higher than that of the control group. In the schools that had participated twice, the gain was 1,51 points, while in the schools which had participated three times, the increase came up to 2,38 points. “The effect is cumulative, even though we don’t know how much this yield can improve,” says Sérgio Werlang.
The researchers estimated the economic returns of this achievement. The estimate was based on data comparing the performance of young people in past educational evaluations, specifically those conducted in the 1990’s and the salaries they earned after graduation. The expectation was that future salaries would increase by 0.10%, for those who participated once; and from 0.19% to 0.30% for those who participated two and three times, respectively. César Camacho, the general director of Impa, was quite surprised by the results of the study. “This is a new program which initially faced resistance in some states,” he says. In Camacho’s opinion, the success of this initiative is expected to bring it closer to experiences in countries such as South Korea, which sends award recipients to special universities, or Australia, where the competition was included in the school curriculum.
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