Can Higher Education Expansion Alleviate Teacher Shortages? Evidence from Brazil

• In Event: From Preparation to Placement: Strengthening the Supply of Qualified Teachers

Proposal

Teacher shortages remain a persistent challenge for education systems, particularly in vulnerable and remote areas. This paper examines whether the expansion of federally funded, tuition-free tertiary education in Brazil, primarily targeted at underserved regions, helped mitigate local teacher shortages in public high schools. Leveraging the staggered rollout of two major federal programs—REUNI and the creation of Federal Institutes—we exploit geographic and temporal variation to identify the causal impact of higher education expansion on the availability and qualifications of high school teachers. We find that the expansion led to a 2.2 percentage point reduction in the share of classrooms lacking core subject teachers, along with improvements in teacher qualifications: a 1.5 percentage point decrease in classrooms with uncertified teachers (those without a formal teaching degree) and a 3.4 percentage point decrease in classrooms with unspecialized teachers (those teaching subjects outside their academic field). These effects appear to be driven in part by the entry of subject-specialized graduates—many without formal teaching credentials—through more flexible hiring arrangements, such as temporary contracts. In addition, the expansion contributed to the local production of teachers trained in federal higher education institutions, reinforcing a grow-your-own effect. Our findings highlight the potential of higher education expansion to strengthen the local teacher pipeline, particularly in hard-to-staff areas.

Authors

• Luana Marotta, Inter American Development Bank

• Gregory Elacqua, Inter-American Development Bank