A trajetória do financiamento da educação básica no Brasil : conjunturas críticas constitucionais e persistência das desigualdades (1823 a 1988)

Abstract

The recognition of the right to education took place belatedly and while some European and South American countries could analyze the results of the creation of their education systems and the definition of compulsory schooling, the transition from Monarchy to Republic (1889) took place in Brazil. At that time, there was still disagreement among parliamentarians on the competences of the central government and subnational governments in relation to the provision of school education, as well as, difficulties of the former provinces with their finances to subsidize public services. Since the beginning of institutionalization process of public education its funding was neglected, has been assigned to religions institutions by the Portuguese monarchy during the colonization of Brazil. A historical analysis was carried out to understand the trajectory of public education and the possible legacies that produced funding patterns over time. Primary education only became a mandatory stage in the 1934 Constitution. Since then, budgetary binding of certain taxes has become the main strategy of social and political actors to guarantee minimum funding for the “basic schooling” of the population, served by the public education systems. From this perspective, we analyze the institutional arrangements made up of the production contexts of the seven Brazilian constitutions (1827, 1891, 1834, 1937,1846, 1867 e 1988) particularly the first Republican Constitution of 1891 and the sixth Republican Constitution of 1988, considering them, initially, as critical junctures capable of establishing devices that potentially would reduce educational inequalities, taking into account the characteristics that circumscribed these two periods of Brazilian political history.