Stella Porto's List: Brazil Higher Ed

• But while this remains a problem, private sector education companies have started a revolution in post-secondary education that has tripled the number of places available to the country’s booming lower middle classes.
• Some of these, such as Anhanguera Educacional Participações, are entering the ranks of the world’s largest education companies by student numbers as they rapidly expand their reach through Latin America’s biggest economy.
• Private-sector education is having a positive impact for the poor especially: “Wage increases boosted the incomes of the poor, lifting more than 30m people into the middle classes over the past decade.”  International corporations, like Pearson, are also beginning to cater to Brazil’s demand for education and are partnering with local companies to offer new programs and divisions.
• Brazil’s private sector education industry has demonstrated that with the right demand and incentive structure, private education can be both lucrative and effective.  

• Anyone who knows anything about Brazil knows how incorrect this analysis is.

   

  Brazil’s education system is one of the major factors that limits its growth while creating a population incapable of creating a legitimate political system. Oh, did I mention it’s the third most unequal country on earth and that it is plagued by violence that makes the US look like Switzerland?

   

  When public education is junk, and you offer people the next best thing, they take it. That does not mean it’s a good system.

   

  Private education costs most people here an arm and a leg. Research the numbers. I’m talking a month’s minimum wage or two every month to get your kid educated, from K-university.

   

  Considering how unequal Brazil is, that means only the rich can truly educate their kids.

   

  Even worse, these people all end up competing for public sector jobs (through ‘concursos’) because the private sector is undersized and undercompetetive.

   

  Looking to other countries for solutions is great. But this analysis is junk.

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• Some investors have already jumped in. Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based DeVry Inc.  DV +1.06%  paid $40.4 million in 2009 for 82.3% of Fanor, a for-profit university based in the northeastern state of Ceará. The company plans to add new facilities and improve existing facilities in the country, said Steven Riehs, DeVry's president, K-12, international and professional education.
• London's Pearson  PSO -0.62%  PLC, which is also investing in China, paid £326 million pounds ($520.1 million) in July to buy SEB, a provider of both basic and college education and teaching methods in the state of São Paulo. Pearson, which has business across Latin America, has indicated that Brazil, along with China, is one of its top priorities for growth. The purchase in Brazil was the single largest investment Pearson has made in its education business since 2006, a spokeswoman said.
• as too fragmented.
• "There are more than 2,000 for-profit institutions in Brazil,
• She sees them as potential targets not only for international players but also for other Brazilian colleges, especially the three—Anhanguera Educacional Participações SA., Estácio Participações S.A. and Kroton Educacional SA  KROT4.BR +6.15%  —that are publicly traded.

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• Entenda-se, neste particular, que É PROIBIDO que estes cursos possam ser realizados no Brasil.  

   

     

   

    Desta forma, é proibido segundo a Lei brasileira, que as Universidades Estrangeiras façam convênios com Universidades Brasileiras para oferecer os cursos de Mestrado e Doutorado no Brasil.
• Mesmo com esta proibição algumas Universidades estrangeiras oferecem estes cursos uma parte no Brasil e outra parte no país estrangeiro. Isto é ilegal e mesmo que seja prometido que no seu histórico o curso sairá como se tivesse acontecido totalmente no país estrangeiro, você não conseguirá que seu Diploma seja REVALIDADO, aqui no Brasil.

• Tudo muito bom e funciona muito bem, mas na hora da revalidação do diploma estrangeiro aqui no Brasil a coisa complica. Exigida pelo MEC, a revalidação deve ser feita no departamento do curso equivalente em alguma universidade brasileira. Este processo pode ser longo porque exige muita documentação, além disso, o diploma de graduação pode precisar de ajustes e o aluno ter que completar a grade curricular estrangeira com aulas presenciais na universidade ou com um exame.
   
   Para quem quer revalidar diploma de profissões regulamentadas, ou seja, regidas por conselhos e organizações, como medicina, direito e engenharia, a situação fica ainda pior. A Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional diz que os certificados e diplomas obtidos em instituições estrangeiras de ensino a distância devem ser revalidados para gerarem efeitos legais, de acordo com as normas vigentes para o ensino presencial. Apesar de garantida por lei, a revalidação exige muita burocracia, tempo e disposição do diplomado

• Distance Learning is growing dramatically in Brazil in the last 10 years, somehow accompanying and collaborating with the social and economic changes that Brazilian society is experiencing. It should be noted that the numbers of undergraduate distance learning entrants in the period between 2004 and 2008, growth always equal to or greater than 40% per year, reaching a peak of 407% in 2005.

• Development organizations such as the World Bank or the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) can play an important role. Once the internationalization goal is defined, they could provide the necessary support, in partnership with local institutions.
• Increase the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT´s) as a tool for cooperation and for integrating students and faculty with international projects. Increasing distance learning programs and cooperation mediated by ICT´s is a no-brainer.
• Map what is already in place, identifying what is working in terms of internationalization and supporting its expansion

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• the head of international relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas, an institution that includes one of Rio's top business schools
• Brazil is not a hot spot on the international academic scene. Universities looking for institutional partners, foreign students looking to study abroad, and professors searching for posts in other countries rarely consider Brazil as a first choice
• Brazil's elite higher-education institutions are beginning to embrace internationalization after decades of insularity.
• The University of São Paulo recently arranged a student- and faculty-exchange agreement with China's Henan University. In April, the University of Wisconsin at Madison announced a plan to deepen its ties to Brazil and its higher-education establishment.
• Brazil also presents a number of obstacles to foreigners, from the obvious, like language and bureaucracy, to the opaque, like the longstanding insularity that has left the South American giant close to invisible in intellectual circles
• Language is, in fact, the biggest barrier facing Brazilian universities hoping to hire from abroad. Portuguese is not a common second language, and there is a marked reluctance in Brazilian higher education to offer courses in English.
• Unicamp, which offers to teach Portuguese to new faculty members and students from abroad, is considering offering lectures in both Portuguese and English. Most of the professors in its graduate programs are capable of teaching in English, administrators note.
• "We'll probably offer [courses] in two languages at the start," says Leandro Russovski Tessler, coordinator of institutional and international relations. "But there is a problem in Brazil, because giving classes in English is akin to betraying the national sovereignty. But we are flexible."
• So many things are changing because of the new status of Brazil and the increased interest in Brazil and Portuguese," says Leslie Bethell, a former director of Oxford's Centre for Brazilian Studies. "I hear all over the place that people are signing deals to try and exchange students. But how far it has gone I am not sure. I am a bit skeptical. Brazil has always been a reluctant to do this.

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