Vocational Education in the Legal Amazon is suboptimal. Faced with a particularly challenging job market for young people, the low representativity of technical raining in the region’s workforce has made it even more difficult for workers to enter the workforce. This study, produced by researchers from the Amazon 2030 project (AMZ 2030), reveals how the low rate of schooling in this modality contributes to a lower qualification of the workforce, which can mean a wasted opportunity of using the demographic bonus that the region has been experiencing. The report “Education in the Legal Amazon – Assessment and Critical Factors”, developed by education economists Tássia Cruz and Juliana Portella, analyzes the main characteristics and challenges of elementary and higher education in the region. In its section on Vocational Education, the document dialogues with other AMZ 2030 publications which examine the way the region’s labor market operates and point out lessons for development and for the generation of local jobs based on the experiences of free trade zones and international business.
To assess the situation in Vocational Education in the Legal Amazon and compare it with other Brazilian states, the researchers analyzed data from the Basic Education Census of the Anísio Teixeira National Institute of Educational Studies and Research (INEP), Ministry of Education and National Research by Continuous Household Sampling (PNAD Contínua), and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The numbers refer to an economic scenario that includes the year 2020 and, therefore, the beginning of the crisis triggered by the new coronavirus, although this has not significantly changed the indicators considered. 1 Gonzaga, Gustavo, Flávia Alfenas e Francisco Cavalcanti. Mercado de Trabalho na Amazônia Legal – Uma análise comparativa com o resto do Brasil.
The data reveal that there is a low rate of schooling in Vocational Education in all the states that make up the Legal Amazon, especially when compared to the average for the rest of the country. Figure 1 shows the gross enrollment rate at this stage, equivalent to the ratio between the number of enrollments (regardless of age group) in Vocational Education and the total population in the age group expected for this stage (in this case, between 15 and 29 years of age). This rate for the Legal Amazon as a whole is almost half that of the rest of Brazil, indicating that the chance of a young person from the Legal Amazon to be enrolled in Vocational Education is much lower than that of a young person from outside the region.
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