Intercultural schools have 53% higher Ideb scores than the rest of the state public schools in Rio
“Wow, black people speak French too.” This simple assimilation completely scarred – and changed – the life of 24-year-old Kevin Soares. At the time, aged 14, he was starting his studies at Ciep 449 Governador Leonel de Moura Brizola, a school in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, which has a partnership with the French consulate. In one of the classes, Kevin was introduced to a musical group from the Congo. When he heard an accent other than the European one, he realized that French was also part of the daily life of black people like him.
Today Kevin is studying Literature: Portuguese-French. He has been to France twice, once as a student of Ciep 449, in an exchange program, and another time about a month ago, in a program organized by the French embassy to become an assistant professor of Portuguese. Coincidence or fate, Kevin has returned to the same school he visited as a student.
All these turns that Kevin’s life has taken have occurred, one way or another, only because of the school he attended in high school. Public and state-run, Ciep 449 is one of 20 schools in Rio with partnerships with foreign embassies, consulates or companies that promote so-called intercultural education.
Inaugurated in 2014, Ciep 449 was the first school of its kind, with a partnership between Brazil and France. In the same year two other intercultural schools were created, in Nova Iguaçu and in Rio de Janeiro. Currently, the initiative has reached 12 municipalities in Rio de Janeiro, through partnerships with 15 countries on different continents, including the United States, France, China, Russia, India, Colombia and Germany.
OR Earth asked the Ministry of Education (MEC) to inquire about similar projects in other units of the federation, but the folder said it did not have an investigation into the matter.
How does an intercultural school work?
Professor Cícero Tauil, currently director of Ciep 449, has been with the institution since its foundation. He was part of a wave of teachers working in the public network of the state of Rio de Janeiro who were called to participate in the selection of this new project, also in 2013. In addition to presenting a good curriculum, it was necessary to pass an interview in Portuguese and French.
“We spent the whole year of 2013 in training. Once a week there was some kind of training with French teachers,” he recalled. Tauil also explained that, initially, all teachers should devote 30 hours a week at the Brasil-França school, while in other schools it is common to devote 18 hours a week. This extra time was spent on teacher planning and studies.
The idea in intercultural schools is that students learn everything available in the Brazilian National Curricular Base, as well as content related to the country with which the school has a partnership and, of course, also the native language of that nation. Additionally, each school seeks to develop a specific area of knowledge.
“In general, there is an emphasis on connecting countries, such as the natural sciences through the concept of sustainability, the exact sciences through mathematical logical reasoning, among others,” informed the State Department of Education (Seeduc) in Rio de Janeiro.
In the case of Ciep 449, the area of knowledge explored by them is biology, in the discipline given as a “Scientific laboratory”, with lessons all in French. Overall, it is estimated that more than 16 hours of lessons per week are taught in a foreign language for students in intercultural schools. Thus, the new language ends up being absorbed even by those who did not know it.
Highest indexes in Ideb
Intercultural schools are more rigorous than traditional ones, agree the directors Cícero Tauil and Flávia Mercante, of the mathematician CE Joaquim Gomes de Souza Intercultural Brasil – China. In general, intercultural schools score on the Basic Education Development Index (Ideb) 53 percent higher than the rest of public schools in Rio de Janeiro state, according to Seeduc.
CE Mathematics stands out, the school with the highest scores on Ideb among the intercultural ones. Over there, the focus, as the name of the institute says, is on the exact sciences, in addition to learning Mandarin. “Our timetable is full with lessons all day. So, math in the morning, math in the afternoon, physics. It’s really difficult,” considers Flávia.
Also according to Seeduc, intercultural schools also require a larger budget. In addition to increasing the lunch budget, since it is a full-time school, the technical-pedagogical team receives a bonus and is expanded. There are also more resources for setting up language labs.
Despite this, the high level of demand is usually not something that reduces the interest of students who want to enroll in an intercultural school. Vacancies in these institutions fill up in the first stage of registration and there are always waiting lines.
Innovative design, old problems
However, not everyone who manages to join continues to participate. The intercultural schools of Rio de Janeiro, at least according to what was reported by the interviewees from Earththey are still detached from the realities in the communities in which they are inserted.
Ciep 449 is located in the Charitás neighborhood, facing the Morro do Preventório. However, Kevin Soares recalls that he had only one colleague who lived in that community, but that he failed to complete high school there. At the time, because they were in first grade, they still took a test to enter the school, but even so the colleague preferred to give up.
“I’ve also had colleagues who weren’t able to continue because of the pace of study, others because they live far away and because it’s a full-time education, this complicates a lot, because you have to devote yourself to school at all times”, considers the former student.
Kevin likes to think about his past experiences through the lens of today as a graduate student. He reinforces the importance that the intercultural college has had in its formation, but asks that students be less demanding if they do not meet all the expectations placed on a project like this.
“In addition to the pedagogical part, of all the teaching that we had linked to the disciplines, for me the way in which the idea of community was taught in our lives was very important.
Source: Terra
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