Integrated Centre for Adult
and Youth Education (CIEJA)
Country Profile: Brazil
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Population
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202,768,562
(2014, IBGE estimation)
|
|
Poverty (Population living on less than US$1.25
per day)
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6%
(2009)
|
|
Official language
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Portuguese
|
|
Youth literacy rate (15 – 24 years, 2015, UIS
estimation)
|
Female:
99.22%
Male: 98.60%
Both sexes: 98.91%
|
|
Adult literacy rate (15+ years, 2015, UIS
estimation)
|
Female:
92.90%
Male: 92.24%
Both sexes: 92.58%
|
|
Statistical sources
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|
Programme Overview
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Programme Title
|
Centro
Integrado de Educação de Jovens e Adultos (CIEJA, the Integrated Centre for Adult
and Youth Education)
|
|
Implementing Organization
|
Municipal
education department of the city of São Paulo and the Regional Education
Directory of Campo Limpo
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Language of Instruction
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Portuguese
|
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Funding
|
Municipal
education department of the city of São Paulo and sporadic partnerships
|
|
Programme Partners
|
NGO
Capão Cidadão, Projeto TV Doc Inclui and Projeto Viela
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Date of Inception
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1999
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Country Context
Over the
past two decades, quality of life indicators in Brazil have improved in terms
of education, living conditions and wealth, with the percentage of the
population living on less than US $1.90 per day falling from 13.6 per cent in
2001 to 4.9 per cent in 2013. Free primary education is now universal, while
the 2012 National Pact for Literacy at the Right Age aims to improve the
literacy skills of children, helping ensure that every child has satisfactory
literacy skills by the age of 8 years old (Brazilian Ministry of Education,
2012). Although illiteracy rates among young people and adults fell from over
18 million in 1980 to nearly 12 million in 2015, much remains to be done to
improve the access to and quality of education for youths and adults. This
effort would benefit from including the underprivileged communities in the
literacy process.
In the city
of São Paulo, an initiative was launched to create spaces offering flexible
educational opportunities to young people and adults. It aims to empower youth
and adults to be socially, economically and politically active citizens
throughout their lives.
Programme Overview
The Campo
Limpo Centro Integrado de Educação de Jovens e Adultos (CIEJA) (Integrated
Centre for Adult and Youth Education) was established in 1999 in the city of
São Paulo. CIEJAs were originally known as Centros de Educação Municipal de Ensino
Supletivo (CIEMENS or Municipal Centres for Supplementary Study) and were at
first headquartered in church facilities. CIEJA began offering educational
activities dedicated to young people and adults in 2001, in cooperation with
municipal authorities. In the same year, the CIEJA programme was adopted as a
permanent policy by the municipal authorities. There are currently 14 units
implementing the CIEJA approach/programme. This case study focuses on the work
and results of CIEJA Campo Limpo.
The focus
of this initiative is to provide inclusive education for young people and
adults. It owes much to the inspiration of philosopher and educator Paulo
Freire. Innovation and creativity are the leading principles of the directing
administrative team, employees and teachers, alongside a commitment to work for
the education of all as a mean to positively transform lives. This commitment
stems from an understanding and acknowledgement of the target groups as active
producers of art, culture, entertainment and knowledge. In addition, the
initiative recognized cultural agents within neighbourhoods as crucial elements
in the development of activities and a curriculum addressing value creation and
transformation in the community.
The
target groups benefitting from the programme include out-of-school young people
and adults who have not completed school and seek to improve their literacy and
basic skills for better work opportunities and living conditions, as well as
for personal development. Among CIEJA’s learners are people from minority
groups, immigrants (two students from Haiti have enrolled in 2016), and people
from indigenous communities.
The
programme enrols an average of 1,322 students per year (approximately 60 per
cent of them women, 30 per cent young people) and focuses on the local
communities and surrounding areas. Enrolment is open all year round. The number
of students varies according to the level of interest within the community in
education and the day-to-day demands and responsibilities of their lives.
Aims and Objectives
CIEJA
aims to provide inclusive education to minority groups and immigrants, as well
as to learners with indigenous backgrounds who have recently become aware of
how their heritage affects their lives. The programme also aims to improve
participants' awareness and understanding of gender and intergenerational
biases and challenges. With regard to the last aim, it is interesting to note
how often two generations of the same family have participated in the
programme.
Other
specific objectives include:
- Improving learners' cultural
understanding of their own and other cultures.
- Improving learners'
understanding of their own social and ethnic backgrounds.
- Acquiring a better
understanding of learners' possible disabilities and improving their quality
of life with them.
- Empowering students to work
within their community to create positive changes.
- Fostering collaborative work
within and outside learners' communities.
One of
the common goals of learners when they enroll in the programme is to become
more involved in the learning process of their children. It is also one of the
most observed outcomes of the programme.
Programme implementation
The Campo
Limpo unit currently relies on the work of 35 facilitators. Facilitators have
the status of civil servants and are assigned to work in their respective units
after successfully completing the required exams and selection process.
Facilitators work with an average of 15 learners at a time.
CIEJA
offers six distinct periods, each lasting two and a half hours. This approach
is based on legislation allowing students to fulfill half of their required
study hours outside the classroom. Instead of the traditional grade divisions,
students are divided into four levels (called ‘models’), according to their knowledge
levels: literacy, post-literacy, intermediate and final. In each of the six
time periods – from 7.30am to 10pm – there are classes for all four modules
working at the same pace. This allows for flexibility so learners who miss a
class, can attend the same class at a different time and catch up on what they
have missed. The administration’s office is open during teaching hours, so that
students can enrol and join a class at any time.
The Campo
Limpo unit has extensive partnerships with the community. These result in
events, visits, field trips and learning activities. The opportunity to become
a CIEJA partner is open to anyone who proposes valuable educational activities
for CIEJA learners. Examples of events organized in partnership with the São Paulo
community include the twelfth seminar on black participation in education
(celebrating and raising awareness of the challenges which must be overcome in
order to create a more inclusive education system for Afro-Brazilians), the
third annual seminar on indigenous communities, a therapeutic coffee break
group with panel discussions, lectures and workshops, and cultural activities
involving more than 600 participants at a time.
The Campo
Limpo unit and the CIEJA programme as a whole aim to create a space where
students can discuss the challenges and problems they face in their everyday
lives and receive support in finding solutions. Learning content is therefore
useful and applicable to their contexts and needs.
Enrolment and Assessment of Learning Needs
Enrolment
is open all year round. Learners progress from the first to the second cycle
according to the development of their reading, writing, textual interpretation,
and critical thinking skills. Learners are enrolled after undertaking a
diagnostic activity. The diagnostic activity engages the prospective learner in
a series of reading and writing exercises, e.g. reading a short sentence or a
dictation, to assess their existing literacy and numeracy skills and identify
possible difficulties. An initial orientation is then given to learners to
familiarize them with the facilities and opportunities within the programme.
After
undertaking the diagnostic activity students are placed in either the first or
the second cycle of the programme. In the first cycle, activities are carried
out with the support of a facilitator. It is during this cycle that the bulk of
literacy activities take place. In the second cycle, learners lead activities
themselves and it is during this time that post-literacy activities are incorporated
into apprenticeship training, making the learning process more dynamic. This
cycle introduces a division of learning into four categories: humanities,
languages and codes, cognitive sciences and mathematics. At the beginning of
the 2016 school year, students suggested topics that were grouped into four
main generating themes:
- Family,
- Food,
- Work,
- Sports and travel.
Assemblies
for learners and facilitators are held regularly and constant communication
between facilitators, administration and students, within and outside the
classrooms is encouraged and maintained in order to identify challenges and
solutions to the problems faced.
Programme Content and Approach
Each
semester, students choose a broad subject area they wish to explore, which
might be an abstract concept. The choice is made within the group. Initially,
teachers attempt to draw out learners' existing knowledge related to the given
topic, highlighting how that is affected by and affects their lives, and then
try to broaden the concept to more abstract knowledge. Learners must draw from
the thematic work ways of including the community through presentations and
plans for interventions.
As well
as studying the semester’s chosen subject, students are divided into classrooms
dealing with one of four broad areas of knowledge, including: languages
(Portuguese and English); humanities (history and geography); cognitive
sciences (natural sciences and philosophy); and logical and artistic essays
(mathematics and the arts).
At the
end of the month, the learners are rotated to a different area of knowledge,
allowing them to study all the areas. This teaching methodology aims to empower
students and motivate them to be proactive and autonomous researchers in
different fields, providing them with the chance to learn about different
fields. The objective is to enable them to continue learning after they leave
CIEJA, and to be capable of developing innovative and creative solutions to
improve their own lives, and those of their families and communities. That aim
is supported through the kind of activities learners are involved with during
their time at CIEJA. These are usually centred around a real situation or
problem and allow learners to apply the knowledge they have acquired in a
real-life situation.
The programme
uses textbooks distributed by the government as well as other learning and
teaching material independently developed by CIEJA staff.
The main
thematic focus areas included are:
- Basic literacy and numeracy
skills;
- Post-literacy;
- Life skills;
- Health;
- Professional training and
income-generating competencies;
- Poverty reduction;
- Multilingual contexts;
- Democratic citizenship;
- Family and
inter-generational learning;
- Support to literate
environments;
- Sustainable development;
- Sustainable community;
- Gender;
- Literacy for the workplace;
- Ethnic and racial issues;
- Issues concerning indigenous
communities;
- Issues concerning the lives
of young people;
- Issues concerning the lives
of animals.
Learners
with special needs are welcome and receive special attention. In 2016 there
were 300 learners on the programme with a disability. These included hearing,
visual and cognitive disabilities. Learners with special needs and disabilities
can join in special activities. A specific area is dedicated to these special
activities, known as the ‘Room for Supporting Students with Inclusion’.
Activities include taekwondo, painting, playing instruments and capoeira.
Other activities
In order
to support understanding of the challenges faced by indigenous community in São
Paulo, CIEJA carries out many outreach activities with the community. This
series of activities is now taking place for the fourth time, bringing together
people from different indigenous groups within the city with non-indigenous
people. Through these activities, CIEJA has been able to help some of its
learners discover their indigenous background, lost during their ancestors’
migration from rural areas to the city of São Paulo.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Evaluation
and monitoring take place through various assessment activities conducted
throughout the programme. Learners also fill in assessment forms concerning
their overall experience at the school, including their everyday lives, the
topic addressed, teaching methods and proposed activities. External evaluations
of the programme are conducted through monitoring by the regional educational
directorate in Campo Limpo, specifically by a superintendent who visits the
unit frequently to oversee and evaluate the activities undertaken.
Impacts and Challenges
The
verifiable impact of CIEJA is in the visible transformation of the community in
the Campo Limpo unit and in the district at large. As the experience and needs
of learners are given priority, learners actively participate in the
decision-making process. The aim is to ensure the school remains a supportive
environment for their daily lives outside school, and that learners have a
support system to make their plans for the future a reality. Through the
constant contribution of several participants and partners, the project has
achieved many results in terms of the quality of educational delivery:
activities on themes have been suggested by participants, community projects
have been started, a curriculum which caters to the demands and issues within
the region, including violence, discrimination, drugs, and abuse of power has
been created.
Learners
also report that participating in the CIEJA programme has put them in a better
position to be involved in the development and education of the children for
whom they are responsible.
The main
challenges faced by the programme have been:
- Working with different
generations and integrating their different interests, needs and
perspectives in the educational offer.
- Lack of space and resources,
which has made the implementation of activities challenging.
- Low number of facilitators.
Increasing the number of supporting facilitators and the space available
is crucial to both continuity and achieving the programme’s objectives of
providing empowering learning experiences to adults who would not have the
same opportunities otherwise.
Testimonies
I learned about CIEJA through a
colleague at work, and, as I had already been living here for five years
without studying due to prohibiting working hours, I decided to come and learn
more about CIEJA and I really enjoyed it. I noticed it was a welcoming place
without discriminations. While studying here I have learned many things, among
them how to write texts, do calculations, the importance of the environment,
the issues the indigenous communities face in securing their territories,
racism and many other things. What has stood out for me was the inclusion which
exists here for people with special needs, and after this one year I can say I
do not think the same way I did before … This year at CIEJA has awoken my
desire to study so that one day I can also teach and awaken this desire in
others as well. Veronica N., a CIEJA learner.
Lessons Learned
- Commitment to social change
is crucial, and for facilitators it is vital to incorporate the needs and
expectations of beneficiaries to the educational offer, as well as
understanding their background, perspectives, positions and realities.
- Constantly debating and
studying issues present in everyone’s lives, such as ethnicity, gender,
intergenerational conflict, environmental rights, food and nutrition, and
family and youth issues is crucial to delivering a productive and
empowering programme yielding important results.
- Creating a new educational
model, incorporating bottom-up and contextually conscious initiatives,
developed through discussion and knowledge sharing, is not only feasible
but something to be strived for.
Sustainability
Funding
for the programme is unfortunately scarce and CIEJA has come close to being
discontinued several times. Nonetheless, it has now run for 15 years, proving
that the benefits of the programme are significant and that its willingness to
continue serving the Campo Limpo community remains strong. The involvement of
the community at large has also helped ensure that everyone in the district is
aware of the presence of CIEJA and of its role within the city and the
community. The intention is to bring the project to the state and national
scales with allocated funding ensured by law through the implementation of new
policies by federal government.
Sources
Contact
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2009—2016 UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning
