Schooling for Success: Preventing Repetition and Dropout in Latin American Primary Schools

question of quality improvement is the major priority of the public policy agenda in the field of education.

To meet the demand defined by the New Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDB) -- Law no. 9,394, dated December 24,1996 -- in 1997, the Ministry of Education coordinated elaboration of the new National Education Plan (PNE), projecting a series of goals to be attained over the next ten years. The first stage of this debate was a wide-ranging process of consultation with all segments of the education sector. The National Education Plan had its first public hearing in Congress November 26, 1998. It is expected that the hearing will be concluded in 1999. Moreover, on defining a deadline of one year for formulation of the PNE, the LDB simultaneously instituted the Decade of Education, scheduled for the period from 1998 to 2007.

Brazil is now immersed in a profound process of debate on education policies and reforms that has mobilized not only the different levels of government authority, but also various segments of society, all with the fundamental aim of fostering a quality leap in Brazilian education. The conditions are highly favorable since a broad consensus has already been reached on the strategic importance of education as a fundamental requirement for the full exercise of citizenship and as the underlying capital for the nation's economic and social development.

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