Questions/Answers

The State of Pernambuco, since 2007, has been developing an idealization and implantation process of a democratic and regionalized management model, focused on results and service improvement, the “Modelo de Gestão Todos por Pernambuco” (Management Model All for Pernambuco). Out of the diagnoses taken in one of the priorities areas, the education, it was identified that even with lots of physical education equipment advances and investments in pedagogical training, the accomplishment wasn’t satisfactory. Among the found problems, the major ones were related to precarious physic structure, lack of human resources area planning and frequent delays in the execution of the school year. In 2011 was launched the Pact For Education (PFE), a program focused on quality improvement and equity of the education, for all students of state high schools. In 2015, the elementary school was also included. Specifically, the program provides more attractive schools for the students, well equipped, with appropriate methodologies and prepared teachers. Strongly based on popular participation e data transparency, the PFE seeks to align strategic government actions, looking through results e process indicators, establishing a formulation and agreement on goals methodology, providing measurement and periodic monitoring of results by school, and elaborating and implanting corrective actions and performance bonus payment. Those mechanisms allow to scale objectively the development of educational actions taken by the State of Pernambuco. The Pact For Education is operated in rounds of monitoring that goes by 3 levels: Strategic, Tactic and Operational. This way, the reports produced by the technical teams are discussed and supported for decision-making through all layers, from the Governor of the State to the School Manager.

The PFE contributes to the category “Improve the effectiveness of public institutions to reach the SDG’s”. This program increases the transparency and Government responsibilities, provided that all strategy is based on popular participation, the results are agreed by all actors and, beyond that, are systematically monitored and publicized.

The education contributes transversally to various SDGs objectives, but can be highlighted for it’s direct contribution to the SDG-4: “Education Quality”, since this is the main objective of the program. For that, the PFE: I) qualifies state school teachers frequently; II) restructures and improves constantly physical equipment, seeking adequation to all; III) looks to reduce the school dropout rate, guaranteeing that all young and a substantial proportion of adults becomes literal and acquire basic math knowledge, being those abilities focus of the principal result indicator of the program; IV) through PFE, is possible to raise the number of young people and adults with relevant and efficient abilities, including technical competences, through technical and full time basis schools. So, it’s important to stand out the democratizing power of Education, contributing to reduce inequalities, reduce violence and raise the bar of citizenship.

The efforts to guarantee the sustainability of the Pact For Education are concentrated on several fronts: efforts to document its processes and results, development of informatic systems capable of improving communication and giver more reliability to the data, continuous training and development of professional involved, and maintenance or growing the budgetary part for the realization of actions. Those actions aim to make the PFE a permanent program.

One the prevalent problems of the Pernambuco State Education Network used to be the weak performance in comparison to other states. Pernambuco used to figure, in 2011, the 16th position at the IDEB (Biennial Basic Education Development at High School Index) ranking, among the other 27 states, punctuating 3,1 in a 0-10 scale. The IDEB, principal indicator when talking about measurement of education quality in Brazil, is calculated through a ponderation between the student’s performance in math and Portuguese standardized tests and the school dropouts’ rate. In both factors Pernambuco’s 2011 numbers were below the desired. In practice, students presented serious difficulties in writing and textual comprehension, such as in resolution of basic math equations. Adding up to that, 11,3% of students that entered the Highschool would not finish, leaving the school before the closure of the learning cycle. After a profound diagnosis about the causes of this unsatisfactory performance, it got verified the need to implement actions looking forward to the Management by Results at the school ambient, aiming to reach the major goal of improving the quality of Education in Pernambuco.

The educational policy established at the Education State Plan 2015-2025, reflected at the Pact For Education, seeks to overcome substantially the gender and sexual diversity inequality. It signs for an inclusive actuation of the Educational System, in the manner to guarantee that the school teaches all in the same school context, independent of the sex. The school has a fundamental side at the production of gender equality, because it comprehends an important phase that influences the value formation of the individual. It’s important to stand out that the development and training actions focused on the professionals make possible a better way for them to conduct this question.

The PFE is a program focused on improving the quality of education, covering all state schools through the monitoring of its results. In this context, there are two relevant points in terms of improving conditions: the teachers and managers involved in the educational process and the students benefiting from the program. In relation to the first point, thanks to the experience of the Pact's methodology, the employees of the state network demonstrate great ability to work with the management of the program and evaluate their own performance. In addition, teachers have their results financially recognized. For school students, the program provided access to more attractive, well-equipped schools, appropriate teaching methodologies and better prepared teachers. Through the PFE, the State reached the lowest school dropout rate that in 2008, in high school, was 20.3%, and in 2019, 1.5%; In primary education, the reduction went from 14.3% to 0.9% in the same period. Pass rates also improved, for high school in 2008 they were 70.4%, in 2019 they reached 93.6%; Elementary education, which in 2008 was 64.3%, in 2019 reached 93.5%

The Pact For Education methodology was developed considering the stages of formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. In the first stage, the formulation, a situational diagnosis of education in the state is carried out and planning of the results to be achieved by each Regional Education Management (GRE) - regional instance of technical supervision - and by each school. In the second stage, which is implementation, the schools carry out pedagogical and management actions; the conduct of pedagogical assessment of students and the collection and consolidation of data, is handled by the working group that forms the Management Center for Results, of the Secretary of Planning and Management (Seplag). In the third step, Monitoring, readings of the impact, result and process indicators are executed, such as periodic deliberative meetings. Finally, in the Evaluation stage, corrective actions and deliberations on the application of the consequences system are accomplished, with the granting of educational performance bonuses for the areas that reached the agreed goals. It should be noted that, in the management model by results, meetings are held at three levels: strategic, tactical and operational. The first is the strategic meeting of the executive management committee, chaired by the State Governor and formed by Seplag and the Education Secretary, which seeks to sign the global performance of the state high school network. At tactical meetings, representatives from Seplag meet with the GRE manager and the principals of the priority schools. Finally, operational meetings in schools, with the presence of the entire school team and Seplag managers. In all meetings, bimonthly or half-yearly results from schools, GREs and the State are presented and discussed. Throughout the year, four bimonthly presentations (data from the last school bimonthly) and two half-yearly presentations (average or the accumulated of the two corresponding bimonths) are produced.

In general, for families with a lower educational level, the concept of a good public school is directly related to material aspects such as: good uniform, books and snacks. Deconstructing this idea and inserting management methods in schools to improve results through an external secretary (Seplag) was the main obstacle encountered. The implementation of the program also raised questions such as exposing the problems of schools and discussing them. In order to achieve the participation of the groups involved, it was necessary to have an empathetic posture and technically demonstrate what real changes in teaching and learning should be made to improve the education offer.

The initiative is innovative, mainly because it includes management and monitoring techniques focused on results in the educational environment, an unusual practice in Brazil. Actions to: I) execute strategic alignment in the entire state high school network; II) increase the frequency of performance measurement of students in the state high school system through external evaluations; III) implement a model for monitoring results at all levels (Secretary of Education, GREs and schools); IV) requalify the model for agreeing targets and bonus; V) train school management with results orientation; and VI) evaluate the Program itself.

Believing in the modernization of Public Management as an effective way to start the improvement process in the delivery of public services, the State of Pernambuco idealized and implemented the Todos por Pernambuco Management Model. In 2007, this model gave rise to the public security strategy Pacto Pela Vida (Pact for Life). Based on the experience, learning and results obtained with this successful public security program, the Government created, in 2011, the Pact for Education, a set of strategic government actions to obtain significant results that promote inclusive, quality education and equitable, in addition to learning for citizenship.

The Program has always dealt with large amounts of data. Initially, the data were worked on Excel spreadsheets and presentation on PowerPoint slides. Over time, technologies with open source programming languages ​​(Python, R) and business intelligence tools were implemented in order to facilitate the treatment and analysis of data and decision making with the strengthening of public transparency. To facilitate the management of students life, there is the SIEPE - Pernambuco Education Information System, a web support tool for teachers to disseminate notes and all other student information that will compose the indicators used in monitoring.

The system of the model of management by results adopted in the Pact For Education (PFE) is perfectly replicable in the context of Brazilian public education. Pernambuco developed the PFE methodology so that it could adopt technical transfer to municipalities and other states. The results-based management tools adopted in the model are clear and objective, and the actions and practices that compose it are easy to assimilate among the agents to be involved. In the state, seeking to raise even more the level of schooling and educational learning of students, in 2016, the Government launched the Integrated Education Program, with 15 selected municipalities. In addition to the pedagogical actions, one of the axes foreseen was the implementation of management models for results in education in these municipalities, which gave rise to the Pact For Municipal Education, under the responsibility of the Secretary of Planning and Management. In addition, other states in the country are already seeking the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of Planning and Management to learn about the Pernambuco Model in order to replicate it in their networks. The states of Goiás, Espírito Santo and the Federal District have already made technical visits to Pernambuco for this purpose.

The initiative was transferred and adapted to some municipalities in the state of Pernambuco through the Pact for Municipal Education. In addition, the states of Goiás, Espírito Santo and the Federal District have already made technical visits to Pernambuco to learn about the Program in order to replicate it in their networks. The PFE alone has a great potential for replicability basically because it is an initiative that uses resources normally available in local governments, such as technicians for data analysis, communication resources such as emails, IT instruments - which can be from PowerPoint, for example, to more elaborate data panels - offering courses for the faculty (which can be taken online). The monitoring and implementation of the PFE dynamics is closely related to a new culture of monitoring data and specific interventions aimed at the growth of students and teachers. Issues such as more robust investments are important, but they vary according to the financial capacity of each entity, and are in no way an impediment to the implementation of the program.

The implementation of the PFE is simple, since it is more focused on the articulation of existing resources and their efficient use. In terms of the human resources involved, government managers and teachers were already part of the state staff. Regarding the applied budget, there is an average contribution of 35 million per year, used mainly in the adaptation and construction of full-time high schools, reducing the state's deficit legacy. On the other hand, the use of technologies has been helping to reduce travel and accommodation costs, by introducing online meetings.

The initiative is sustainable over time, given that financial and institutional investments aim to ensure that teachers and all students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for lasting social development, considering education as a person's right in building a global citizenship, and that values ​​the diversity and the individual trajectories of each one, without, however, leaving anyone behind. Another relevant aspect was the management by results implemented in schools with the use of indicators as mechanisms to assess and objectively measure the performance of educational actions developed by the state.

Yes

The results of the PFE were evaluated both internally (by contracted institution) and externally (Ministry of Education and World Bank). Efficacy assessments have been taking place since 2007 and there are census assessments for all students in the final grades, in addition to students at the end of the literacy cycle. They occur, nationally, every two years, and annually, by initiative of the state. The effectiveness of PFE was studied by the Pernambuco Public Management Institute - governor Eduardo Campos, Seplag area. In the ex post evaluation, attached, a multivariate regression model was used to measure the impact of school indicators on the policy outcome.

The effectiveness indicators are the Pernambuco Education Development Index (Idepe) and the Basic Education Development Index (Ideb). To evaluate effectiveness, the least squares multivariate linear regression technique was used. As a variable to be explained, the school's result at Idepe was used, and as explanatory variables, indicators of the students' profile and of school supplies and products. Whenever possible, the indicators were placed in the 3rd year of the school granularity (which is effectively evaluated), but, when not available or when relevant, other school indicators were used, according to the attached report.

Pernambuco is the only state in the country to achieve all the goals proposed by the Ministry of Education, moving from 21st place in 2007 to 3rd place in 2019, with a 4.4 score, in the Ideb ranking. The work executed allowed for the 7th consecutive year to reach the lowest dropout rate in high school across the country, currently at 1.5%. Another result is the equity of the network, Pernambuco has the smallest difference between the performance of students with lower and higher incomes, and has one of the smallest differences in student performance between public and private school networks. The initiative is quite sustainable, as it uses resources already available and accessible, whether in its staff or in the tools created by these managers and worked with those involved. Its implementation took place gradually, with decisive support from the leaders involved. Some formal measures, such as the drafting of decrees, boosted the initiative. With regard to effectiveness, it was found that the integration of education has a significant impact on the result and that it is possible to improve the result of full-time schools through work on other factors, with recovery of students who present age-year distortion and reducing the expended effort of teachers.

The PFE has placed Pernambuco at the forefront of Brazilian Education, especially when it comes to the quality of the high school education offered, the implementation of full-time education (currently in more than 60% of enrollments) and the use of evidence for decision making. As the World Bank report attached to this submission points out. Several states seek to understand how the program works, in order to adapt it to their local realities. The municipalities of Pernambuco also seek to accompany this initiative, demanding the employees who are in charge of this program to develop their actions and establish partnerships in management by results for their localities. Currently, in addition to the work developed at the state network, two large programs were created, within the Pact for Education. To strengthen municipal education, the “Child Literacy Program”, aimed at literacy at the right age (with the participation of 100% of the municipalities) and the “Integrated Education Program”, which focuses on basic education, based on 6 axes, including management by results, which is currently developed in 15 selected municipalities, based on educational and socioeconomic indicators.

The PFE faithfully fulfills the objectives of the 2030 Agenda. For its implementation, external partnerships were made with the World Bank, the Roberto Marinho Foundation and the Ayrton Senna Institute to implement the overage and literacy programs. Internally, there is great collaboration with other state departments and municipalities. The evaluations experienced in the PFE are also carried out, in a census form, in all the municipalities, free of charge. Currently more than 240 thousand students from the municipal network are tested by the evaluations offered by the state (68% of the participants are from the municipal network). Factors that interfere in the results, be it intra or extra school, in the same way, are made available and discussed together with the municipal network, as events of appropriation and dissemination of good practices. Seplag's Management by Results Center builds several data analysis panels, in addition to offering technical training to people interested, so that all evidence can be contextualized and the decisions as assertive as possible. There is a very strong integration with the National Union of Municipal Education Directors, and exchanges of experiences between networks are often experienced. In addition, it is worth mentioning the fundamental partnership with families, sometimes in school meetings, sometimes in encouraging students.

The Pact for Education revealed how important it is to invest in Education, and that when this is done in an organized, focused and targeted way to those who need it most, the fruits are conquered. We realized that when a policy is from a state and developed by professional managers, it manages to cross governments and consolidate itself. It was apprehended that I) a management model, II) a well-defined strategy, III) indicators that allow decision-making, IV) dialogue with those involved is essential for public policy to be permanent. There is still a lot to do, a lot of work ahead. Strengthen partnerships, bring education to the center of the debate, advance the conception of the New Integrated School of Pernambuco, through an articulation with the Union, municipalities, students, education professionals, families and the community, building, pathing this way, a teaching network and care aimed at the integral education of the student, from early childhood to higher Education.