Brazil has reached the highest level, since 2012, of children aged 6 and 7 years who cannot read and write. Last year, the share of the population in this age group that had not been literate reached 40.8%, equivalent to 2.4 million.
The data are from a study published by Todos pela Educação, based on the National Household Sample Survey by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.
By law, children should be guaranteed the right to learn to read and write by the end of the 2nd year of elementary school, that is, at age 7.
The increase in children aged 6 to 7 years in this situation of illiteracy occurred during the Covid pandemic. In 2019, 1.4 million of them had not been literate.
The negative impact is even greater among the poorest, black and brown children. In addition to having less opportunity to do distance-learning, these students were the ones whose schools stayed closed longer.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon