\u201cYet education spending remained limited and inconsistent with the grand rhetoric about the need for public education in the empire,\u201d says historian Carlota Boto at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP). Citing sociologist Celso Beisiegel (1935\u20132017), Boto notes that \u201cBrazil\u2019s education efforts have long been ambitious in rhetoric but feeble in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his recently published book, O ponto a que chegamos: Duzentos anos de atraso educacional e seu impacto nas pol<\/em>\u00ed<\/em>ticas do presente<\/em> (What things have come to: 200 years of lagging education and the impact on current policies; Editora FGV), journalist Ant\u00f4nio Gois, a cofounder of the Brazilian Association of Education Journalists (JEDUCA), begins the opening chapter about the empire with an epigraph written by Dom Pedro I (1798\u20131834), who in a manifesto dated August 1822 promised \u201ca national code of public instruction that will cause talent to spring forth and flourish with vigor,\u201d through \u201ca liberal education that provides all Brazilians with the instruction necessary for their pursuit of happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n This promise was an expression of the liberalism that influenced independence movements in the Americas, says Gois. \u201cCountries such as Prussia and the United States were beginning to organize free public education systems for all, which was unprecedented at the time. Today, we take free education for granted, but back then people wondered why the elite should have to give part of their income, through taxes, to provide education to peasants,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n According to Boto, the version of Enlightenment that Brazil inherited from Portugal differed from the one that prevailed in countries such as France and the United States. In Martim Francisco\u2019s proposal, which he modeled after Condorcet\u2019s, \u201cmany of the principles enshrined in the French reform, such as civic engagement and equality, were absent,\u201d says Gois. \u201cCondorcet\u2019s education model was designed to educate free citizens in a Republic. In the First Empire of Brazil, the system was instead designed to educate subjects of the Crown.\u201d<\/p>\n This was a central goal of the education system in the Joanine period (1808\u20131821), notes Jos\u00e9 Gondra, a professor at Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ). \u201cThey had to build the entire government apparatus for the new seat of the empire. They needed to create an educated citizenry in a society with a predominantly oral culture and outlandish levels of illiteracy, likely as high as 90%,\u201d says Gondra.<\/p>\n In the early years after Brazil\u2019s Declaration of Independence, notes Gondra, the country was in turmoil, rife with unrest, with a population of 4.5 million, including indigenous people, slaves, and many immigrants. \u201cThey all spoke different languages and had different ways of life. Schools had become an important tool to help these people assimilate into Brazilian society,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n The ideas brought from the Enlightenment and the desire to unify the populace set the tone for education policy proposals in the empire. \u201cFollowing Brazil\u2019s Independence, efforts to create an education system that could support the emerging nation\u2019s ambitions for progress and a civilized citizenry were institutionalized,\u201d says Aline de Morais Limeira, a professor of education at the Federal University of Para\u00edba (UFPB). The history of the education system in imperial Brazil was one of institutionalization.<\/p>\n Article 179 of the 1824 Constitution dedicates two sections to education. Section XXXII establishes a set of civil rights that includes \u201cFree primary education for all citizens,\u201d while section XXXIII calls for the creation of \u201ccolleges and universities for the teaching of science, languages and literature, and arts.\u201d The Infant School Act of 1827 mandated the \u201ccreation of infant schools in all cities, villages, and other inhabited locations,\u201d stipulating wages of between 200,000 and 500,000 r\u00e9is for teachers and masters.<\/p>\n However, policy proposals and laws failed to translate into investment. In 1830, the first year for which an imperial budget was drafted, the combined expenditure on education across the provinces was approximately 9% of the total budget of 321 million r\u00e9is, according to a paper published in 2017 by Dalvit Greiner de Paula and Vera L\u00facia Nogueira at the State University of Minas Gerais (UEMG). In contrast, Brazil\u2019s 1988 Constitution earmarked a minimum of 18% of federal tax revenue and 25% of state and municipal revenue for education. In many provinces, teachers received less than the legally required entry-level wage of 150,000 r\u00e9is per year. For context, people were required to have a minimum income of 100,000 r\u00e9is to vote and 200,000 to run for local office.<\/p>\n One of the consequences of the limited budget was the proliferation of private institutions receiving funding from the government, as noted by Gondra. \u201cThe government argued that it lacked the funding to support a network of schools serving the entire population, justifying its policy of funding private and religious schools,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n In 1834, a constitutional amendment partly decentralized the imperial government. The provinces were given a mandate to manage the public education system, with the exception of higher education institutions and schools in the capital. However, provincial governments were not entitled to the primary source of tax revenue at the time: customs duty. \u201cGovernment spending on education fell short of demand. Many provinces had only one secondary school. Most schools were for boys only. Today, it is widely understood that decentralizing the public education system may have hampered its development due to provincial budget disparities and local political issues,\u201d says Limeira.<\/p>\n For Gondra, understanding the education landscape during the empire requires an understanding of the legacy left by the colonial period. In the colony, the few existing educational institutes were schools founded by religious orders, especially the Society of Jesus. This changed when in 1759 the Portuguese government enacted a law expelling the Jesuits from Portugal and its overseas possessions, replacing them with a system of \u201croyal tutoring,\u201d a public education system in which the state planned the curriculum, hired teachers, and issued diplomas.<\/p>\n The reform was part of an effort to modernize the empire and train citizens for government positions. The new system was funded by a \u201cliteracy tax\u201d created in 1772 and levied on the sale of brandy, wine, and vinegar in Portugal, the Azores, and Madeira. In Portugal\u2019s American and African colonies, the tax was levied on meat sold at butchers. During the Joanine period, revenue from the literacy tax amounted to approximately 12 million r\u00e9is per year, far too little to fund the Colony\u2019s entire school system, notes Carlos Roberto Jamil Cury, a professor of philosophy at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), in an article titled \u201cFinanciamento da educa\u00e7\u00e3o brasileira: Do subs\u00eddio liter\u00e1rio ao Fundeb\u201d (Funding Brazil\u2019s education system: From the literacy tax to FUNDEB).<\/p>\n According to Limeira, although data about the colonial period are scant, documents in the Overseas Historical Archive in Portugal that date back to the 1770s suggest that more than 350 vacancies were advertised for \u201croyal teachers\u201d (who taught subjects such as Latin, Greek, rhetoric, and philosophy) and more than 470 vacancies for “masters\u201d (who taught reading, writing, and arithmetic) in the Colony. There are also records of the arrival of 17 masters in Brazil between the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, says Gondra. When Dom Jo\u00e3o VI (1767\u20131826) disembarked in Rio de Janeiro, there were then 20 royal masters in the city\u2019s employment.<\/p>\n The royal tutoring system continued into the First Kingdom. Teachers accredited by the state taught independently, and students enrolled in each course separately. Gradually, teachers were integrated into schools such as Atheneu Norte-Riograndense (1834), secondary schools in Para\u00edba and Bahia (1836), and Col\u00e9gio Pedro II (1837) in Rio de Janeiro. The first institution dedicated to training teachers (normal school) in Latin America was founded in Niter\u00f3i, Rio de Janeiro, in 1835.<\/p>\n The 1759 reform expelled the Jesuits but not other orders of the Catholic Church. Despite their expulsion, however, there are records suggesting that Jesuits continued to work as private tutors, says Gondra. During the imperial period, the Church continued to play a key role in education \u2014 not only through its religious schools. \u201cCatholicism was the official religion and the Catholic Church an arm of the State. It exerted an important influence on education in different ways throughout the nineteenth century, such as by incorporating Christian doctrine in the curricula, or by having representatives of the Church in educational roles, including teaching, supervision, recruiting, and public administration positions,\u201d notes Limeira.<\/p>\n One piece of data that is often cited to demonstrate the failures of the education system in Imperial Brazil will be found in the country\u2019s first census, in 1872. The census showed that slightly over 80% of freemen were illiterate, or approximately 6.8 million out of a total population of 8.4 million. Limeira notes, however, that looking at these figures in isolation could lead to an anachronistic understanding of the state of affairs \u2014 at that time, a distinction was made between slaves and freemen and between illiteracy and schooling. Statistics for children were based on school attendance between the ages of 6 and 15 and not on literacy, although some provinces, including the capital, only required children to attend school from the age of 7.<\/p>\n As Brazil celebrates the 200th<\/sup> anniversary of its Independence, recent research has shown that many of the issues being dealt with 200 years ago are still current today, as Gondra says. Some economists are proposing a reintroduction of government-sponsored private education through voucher systems. The relationship between religion and education remains a subject of hot debate. Homeschooling, which was common among wealthy families in the 1800s, is making a comeback. \u201cThe issues underlying the education proposals of the past may have changed, but some things remain the same, and past ideas are now being repackaged as new ones,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Universities were nonexistent in Portuguese America throughout the entire colonial period. Conversely, in Spanish possessions, the first universities were founded in the 1550s in Mexico and Peru. Maria Ligia Prado, a historian at USP, says the absence of universities in Portuguese America was a direct reflection of the circumstances back in the colony\u2019s motherland. Seventeenth-century Spain, then a powerful European empire, had more than 20 universities. Portugal, in contrast, was a small, impoverished nation with a single university to call its own, the University of Coimbra. The Spanish had a large contingent of faculty, some of whom were willing to transfer to the New World. \u201cThe colonies were different because their colonizers were different,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n After Brazil\u2019s Independence, higher education was slow to develop despite advocacy for expansion. When the Portuguese court transferred to Brazil in 1808, a primary education system was created in which teachers taught individual subjects independently. Little by little, courses such as those administered at the School of Anatomy, Surgery, and Medicine in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador were integrated into medical schools in Rio de Janeiro State and Bahia (1832). Law schools were founded in S\u00e3o Paulo and Olinda (1827). Engineering schools, such as the Rio de Janeiro Polytechnic School (1874) and the Ouro Preto School of Mining (1876), were eventually founded. Brazil\u2019s first university \u2014 the University of Rio de Janeiro \u2014 would only be founded in 1920 and later renamed first the University of Brazil and now the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).<\/p>\n During the colonial period, children born to wealthy families typically pursued advanced degrees at the University of Coimbra. In Spanish America, in contrast, independence movements had large numbers of alumni from local universities, notably Universidad de San Carlos in Guatemala and Universidad de Chuquisaca in Bolivia.<\/p>\n \u201cUniversities in Spanish America were conservative and primarily designed to train civil servants for colonial government positions. But they, too, were influenced by the effervescence that marked the late eighteenth century. Mariano Moreno [1778\u20131811], who led the movement for independence of the United Provinces of R\u00edo de la Plata, had graduated from Chuquisaca,\u201d notes USP historian Maria Ligia Prado.<\/p>\n Curiously, however, rather than expanding universities in Spanish America, the leaders of newly independent nations were determined to shut them down. \u201cTo liberals in [South] America, universities carried the stain of their colonial past,\u201d explains Prado, who explored the events of this period in an essay titled \u201cUniversidade, estado e igreja na Am\u00e9rica Latina\u201d (Universities, the State and the Church in Latin America), published in the book Am<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>rica Latina no s<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>culo XIX. Tramas, telas e textos<\/em> (Latin America in the nineteenth century: Stories, paintings, and texts; EDUSP, 2004).<\/p>\n Newly formed nations instead wanted to create a higher education system designed for more practical purposes. \u201cThis was the model that Brazil would embrace in the nineteenth century: universities were intended primarily to develop professional skills,\u201d says Prado. In this context, it was not the absence of universities in Imperial Brazil that caused the country to lag behind its neighboring nations, but the length of time it took to eventually develop higher education programs and schools.<\/div>\n Scientific articles<\/strong> Books<\/strong>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/086-089_educacao-no-bicentenario_320-1-1140.jpg\")
Z\u00e9 Vicente<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>The beginnings of higher education and vocational education in the former colonies<\/em><\/p>\n
\nCASTANHA, A. P.\u00a0A instru\u00e7\u00e3o prim\u00e1ria no Brasil entre a Independ\u00eancia e o Ato Adicional de 1834<\/a>.\u00a0Teoria e Pr\u00e1tica da Educa\u00e7\u00e3o<\/strong>. vol. 23, n. 1. 2020.
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\nGOMES, A. R.\u00a0Ensino p\u00fablico no Brasil: Prim\u00f3rdios (1759-1827)<\/a>.\u00a0Instrumento Cr\u00edtico<\/strong>. vol. 5, no. 5. 2019.
\nNEVES, L. M. B. P.\u00a0Educar \u00e9 civilizar: A pedagogia dos peri\u00f3dicos e dos panfletos pol\u00edticos na Independ\u00eancia do Brasil (1821-1824)<\/a>.\u00a0Revista Hist\u00f3ria da Educa\u00e7\u00e3o<\/strong>. vol. 25. 2021.
\nPAULA, D. G. & NOGUEIRA, V. L.\u00a0Escola p\u00fablica liberalismo no Brasil imperial: Constru\u00e7\u00e3o do Estado e abandono da na\u00e7\u00e3o<\/a>.\u00a0Revista Hist\u00f3ria da Educa\u00e7\u00e3o<\/strong>. vol. 21, no. 53. 2017.<\/p>\n
\nBOTO, C.\u00a0A liturgia escolar na Idade Moderna<\/strong>. Campinas: Papirus, 2017.
\nGOIS, A.\u00a0O ponto a que chegamos: Duzentos anos de atraso educacional e seu impacto nas pol\u00edticas do presente<\/strong>. Rio de Janeiro: Editora FGV, 2022.
\nLIMEIRA, A. M.\u00a0et al<\/em>.\u00a0Independ\u00eancia & instru\u00e7\u00e3o no Brasil: Hist\u00f3ria, mem\u00f3ria e forma\u00e7\u00e3o (1822-1972)<\/strong>. Rio de Janeiro: EdUerj, 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liberal ideas and the need for national cohesion inspired early proposals for universal public education, but funding was always limited","protected":false},"author":613,"featured_media":485491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[226,234,241],"coauthors":[1619],"class_list":["post-485486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanities","tag-education","tag-finance","tag-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/613"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485486"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":488885,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485486\/revisions\/488885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485486"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=485486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}