Brazilian basic education has made significant advances in recent decades, but continues to be marked by profound inequalities and a mismatch between the teaching model and contemporary technological and social transformations. The assessment was made by researcher Ivan Siqueira, professor of Interdisciplinarity at UFBA (Federal University of Bahia), during the 2nd FAPESP 2026 Conference – “Basic Education in Brazil: Challenges and Opportunities”.
According to the speaker, the country has expanded access to schools since the 1988 Constitution, but still faces difficulties in guaranteeing quality compatible with the investments made. “There is a lot of evidence that we have made progress. But, when we consider the levels of inequality, we understand that we still need to do much, much, much more”, he highlighted.
One of the central points of the presentation was the distinction between principles and criteria in defining public policies. For Siqueira, Brazilian legislation has correct guidelines, but lacks objective implementation mechanisms. The researcher specifically analyzed article 205 of the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, which establishes: “Education, a right of all and a duty of the State and the family, will be promoted and encouraged with the collaboration of society, aiming at the full development of the person, their preparation for the exercise of citizenship and their qualification for work”.
“The biggest problem with Article 205 is that it is a declaration of principle and not the establishment of a criterion. And the principle is not binary: you can say that it is going in a certain direction, even without ever getting there”, he explained. “We need to transform principles into criteria, because criteria are objective and allow for collection.”
This gap, according to him, directly affects educational governance, especially in municipalities with low administrative capacity. “A large part of basic education is in the hands of city halls, which have fewer resources and less structure, precisely at the most important stage of human development,” he said.
The professor also criticized . According to him, the system allows teachers to be trained without practical experience in schools. “Brazil authorizes the training of people who have never set foot in a classroom. This does not happen in areas such as medicine”, he pondered. Another problem highlighted was curricular fragmentation. “It is illusory to imagine that a student can learn 13 different subjects with less than four hours of classes per day”, he highlighted. For him, the model presupposes a full-time school, which is not yet a reality in most parts of the country.
The impact of digital technologies
Siqueira highlighted that digital technologies have introduced a learning curve, affecting attention, language and forms of interaction. “The traditional lecture model is dead. It no longer serves the students we have today”, he summarized. According to the researcher, students have increasing difficulty concentrating and organizing their thoughts: “Today it is very difficult to keep a student focused for ten minutes. To write, they need to think — and they are not exercising that.”
He also reported the increase in phenomena such as misinformation, dependence on social networks and mental health problems. “At UFBA, 70% of medical students report mental health problems. In psychology, the percentage is even higher: 80%. So much so that professors, my colleagues, say that people come to psychology for treatment”, he said.
AI (artificial intelligence) was presented as one of the main vectors for transforming education and the job market. Siqueira cited recent layoffs in the financial sector to illustrate the impact of digital. “In the last four months, the four largest North American banks laid off 15,000 employees, while making more than $1 billion in profit. One person with AI does the work of ten. And that completely changes the market,” he emphasized.
At the same time, he highlighted positive applications in the educational system. “Models based on BNCC [Base Nacional Comum Curricular] they are able to generate lesson plans adapted to different student profiles, enormously reducing the teacher’s work”, he said. The BNCC is the normative document that defines what all Brazilian students have the right to learn throughout basic education (preschool, primary and secondary education).
Furthermore, the incorporation of new digital technologies favors access to quality content, the formation of learning communities and the possibility of integrating the curriculum with local realities, such as in indigenous and quilombola communities, expanding the potential for a more contextualized, collaborative education aligned with contemporary demands.
But there are several bottlenecks to overcome. Among them, the evaluation model. Siqueira argued that exams such as the Basic Education Assessment System (Saeb) are outdated and do not capture essential skills. And he advocated the incorporation of skills such as critical thinking, metacognition and complex problem solving. “The student needs to know how to mobilize knowledge in real situations. It is not enough to repeat content”, he said.
The weight of inequalities
For the researcher, social inequality continues to be the main obstacle to the quality of education in the country. He cited internal differences in the city of São Paulo itself, where life expectancy can vary by up to 20 years between different districts. “This inequality begins in childhood and expands throughout school life,” he stated. “If we don’t reduce this, it will be very difficult to improve the quality of education.”
In conclusion, Siqueira turned to geographer Milton Santos to emphasize the subjective dimension of education. “Identity is the feeling of belonging to what belongs to us”, he said. According to him, many students do not recognize themselves at school. “There are students whose bodies are present, but who don’t feel like they belong. Without that, nothing makes sense,” he said.
Finally, the researcher defended greater involvement of universities with basic education. “If the university does not assume this role, we can expect a disaster, which is already underway”, he warned.
Siqueira has a PhD in Literature from USP (University of São Paulo), was a professor at the ECA (School of Communications and Arts) at USP and at the São Paulo state public network, as well as a visiting professor at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies (Japan). He served as a member of the National Education Council and Mercosul Educacional. He develops research in basic education, interdisciplinarity, digital technologies and artificial intelligence applied to education, with additional training at institutions such as Stanford, Oxford and MIT.
The event was attended by Marta Arretche, general coordinator of Sciences, Humanities and Arts at FAPESP, and Oswaldo Baffa Filho, coordinator of the FAPESP 2026 Conferences. Mozart Ramos, holder of the Sérgio Henrique Ferreira Chair at the Institute of Advanced Studies – Ribeirão Preto Center (IEARP) at USP, was moderating. Ramos highlighted the centrality of the discussion on basic education in the country. “If we don’t solve basic education, we won’t solve the main problems in higher education,” he said, remembering that 59% of students leave university before completing the course.
