Higher Education in Brazil: Challenges and Options

by World Bank Group

For years, Brazil has had a system of higher education, which has not adequately met the needs of the Brazilian companies or prospective students. In comparison to other countries in the region, Brazilian universities have enrolled a significantly smaller percentage of the eligible students, have not produced an adequately trained work force and have been cost prohibitive for lower income students. Both economic and societal pressures are now forcing changes upon the educational system. Together with the Minister for Education, members of the National Education Council, and others, World Bank staff participated in an assessment of options to improve higher education over the next two or three decades. This study describes the educational system, provides an economic perspective and contains specific policy recommendations resulting from the assessment.

208 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2002

About the author

The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and most famous development bank in the world and is an observer at the United Nations Development Group. The bank is based in Washington, D.C. and provided around $61 billion in loans and assistance to "developing" and transition countries in the 2014 fiscal year. The bank's stated mission is to achieve the twin goals of ending extreme poverty and building shared prosperity. Its five organizations are the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

The World Bank's (the IBRD and IDA's) activities are focused on developing countries, in fields such as human development (e.g. education, health), agriculture and rural development (e.g. irrigation and rural services), environmental protection (e.g. pollution reduction, establishing and enforcing regulations), infrastructure (e.g. roads, urban regeneration, and electricity), large industrial construction projects, and governance (e.g. anti-corruption, legal institutions development). The IBRD and IDA provide loans at preferential rates to member countries, as well as grants to the poorest countries. Loans or grants for specific projects are often linked to wider policy changes in the sector or the country's economy as a whole. For example, a loan to improve coastal environmental management may be linked to development of new environmental institutions at national and local levels and the implementation of new regulations to limit pollution, or not, such as in the World Bank financed constructions of paper mills along the Rio Uruguay in 2006.