Promoting educational performance through improvements in the school management: the case of the Jovem de Futuro Program

Abstract

Educational performance in Brazil is unquestionably limited, even when compared to countries with the same expenditure per student. This weak performance occurs, largely, to an inappropriate use of the available resources. In order to address this challenge, Instituto Unibanco developed Jovem de Futuro: a program focused on improving school management, adopted throughout the last decade by three thousand schools from eleven state school networks. This study estimates, through an experimental design, the impact of such Program on the proficiency of students at the end of 3rd grade of High School (which corresponds to the final grade of High School in Brazil). The results found show a statistically significant impact of 10% from a standard deviation, which is robust between the different teaching networks and throughout time. Impacts of this magnitude are aligned with the findings of similar evaluations carried out internationally and are equivalent to the gain in proficiency that a student reaches throughout one school year in High School. This evaluation demonstrates that it is possible to design and implement programs that can transform the management of public schools and contribute to facing the severe educational flaws in the country.