March, 2003 (No. 6)
This_months_webpage.GIF (953 bytes)
School choice: a Subtext special edition
Going Dutch — private education, public finance
Competition won’t hurt you! — Swedish report
United States: three more states move towards choice
New Zealand’s homegrown voucher scheme a political casualty
Making sense of school choice
Taking a punt on vouchers Colombia-style
Great Danish voucher scheme has all-round support
Want to know more? — Links to school choice information
Education Forum Briefing Paper: government funding of non-government schools
Quotes of the month
Australian private school enrolments boom
Parental decisions should drive the “education enterprise”, says report
Report card for British Columbia schools
Sylvan stock soars on sale announcement
Book about 12-year battle for school choice in US released
School choice proponent wins educational excellence award
Who benefits from public education? — report asks
Vouchers and voucher-like schemes in developing countries

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Brazil pays poor parents to send their children to school

Eight-year-old Geislane Jose da Silva (pictured below) is the main breadwinner in her family.

As long as she attends school regularly, her mother receives a monthly grant. “My mum keeps telling me that I have to stay in school,” she says.

Geislane’s mother is among the more than 2.5 million poor parents in Brazil benefiting from the nationwide education grant scheme, Bolsa Escola.

Like the great majority of women in her neighbourhood, she is a single mother, has no stable job and does not receive maintenance from the father of her three children.

For her — and poor parents like her — the education grant means a fixed income that allows her to send her children to school.

The Bolsa Escola initiative was launched two years ago with the aim of reducing dropout rates. In Brazil, one out of four pupils drops out before the end of primary school.

Today, the programme reaches 8.7 million schoolchildren, and the goal is to reach 11 million.

Beneficiaries are poor parents whose income is below or equal to half the minimum monthly wage. They receive a monthly allowance for each child aged between six and 15 for a maximum of three children.

Payment is made on condition that children attend at least 85% of classes. In most cases, the allowance is paid to mothers, who can draw the allowance directly at any cash point using a special bankcard.

Bolsa Escola’s success has seen similar schemes mushrooming throughout Latin America (Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Mexico), and pilot projects are running in Mozambique and the United Republic of Tanzania.

A policy brief gives more details on the Bolsa Escola.

A UNESCO book gives more details on school grant programmes.

(This article was adapted from an article in the February edition of the UNESCO newsletter Education Today.)