From the Right to Education to the Right to Learn: Education Policy Making in Brazil

• In Event: Amplified Trends in Pandemic Times: New Philanthropy and the Disruption of Global Education

Proposal

In spite of the growth of privatization in Latin America, few studies have investigated the forms it has adopted in the region. Drawing from the categories of privatization developed by Moschetti, Fontdevila & Verger (2019), this article argues that since 2016, Brazil has seen a shift from dispersed new management reforms to privatization as part of a structural reform of the state. Philanthropy has played a key role in this shift by adopting two forms of action: advocacy activities among supporting groups and movement of “political renovation” that affect legislative and public management staff. As a result, their agenda has been advancing fast, displacing an emphasis from the “right to education” to the “right to learn”, and abandoning a deeper understanding of education and its role in democracy and social justice. During the round-table discussion, the original work will be revisited in order to reflect upon the two years since the publication of NSI 04 with an emphasis on shifts that have taken place in the Brazilian context that may result in the diminishing or intensification of pre-existing trends.

Author

• Andressa C Pellanda, Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education