The Challenge of School Dropout in Brazil: An Analysis of Over Two Decades

Abstract

School dropout is a critical challenge for Brazilian education, having a multicausal nature and the potential to disrupt academic trajectories. This paper contributes to discussions on school dropout by covering primary and secondary educational levels. We conducted an extensive exploratory analysis of data provided by the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira - INEP) from 1996 to 2022, considering factors such as government transitions and unforeseen events (e.g., financial crises and the COVID-19 pandemic). Thus, we handled millions of instances from the INEP database to explore data using Google Colab. We focused on the relationship between student dropout rates and various other factors, including categorical variables such as school location, type of administrative management, geographical region, and year, as well as numerical variables such as the number of classes, number of teachers, number of approved students, and number of failed students. Our goal was to identify which combination of these characteristics contributed most to the increase in student dropout rates. Our findings evidence that schools in urban areas of theNortheast region, whether municipal or state-run, have the highest student dropout rates in basic education in Brazil. The state of Alagoas shows a more pronounced duality in its education networks than the rest of Brazil, as the highest rates in elementary education occur in municipal schools. In contrast, state schools are the major contributors to high numbers of dropouts. Alagoas faces the most concerning dropout rates in high school education. The results showed periods of growth and decline in student dropout rates, aligning with government transitions, certain financial crises,and the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also a correlation between dropouts and failures in both elementary and high school education, with the correlation being much stronger in elementary education.