Public school students, on average, perform below that of private students on the Enem, Brazil's college entrance exam. And the public school students suffer the most on the English section of the exam.
Folha's analysis of all questions applied in the exam between 2010 and 2019 mapped those in which public school students disproportionately scored wrong: 18 of the 50 English questions in the period.
On these questions, there is a statistical bias against the public schools system, verified when comparing students from public and private schools with similar performances.
English accounted for 46% of disparate issues, even though it made up only 3% of the total questions.
Using the same methodology used in the test (TRI), the report simulated the test without the English material. Public school testees would have risen an average of 11 thousand positions in 2019, of a total of 900 thousand testees.
"The notion that you don't learn English at school persists, and that happens in private schools too, as if the language course were the right environment," says Cíntia Toth Gonçalves, from the British Council.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon