Implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on funding basic education

• Autor(a) principal: Alves, Thiago
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Farenzena, Nalú, Silveira, Adriana A. Dragone, Pinto, José Marcelino de Rezende
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Revista de Administração Pública
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.fgv.br/rap/article/view/81896
• topic: COVID-19; school funding; educational inequalities; educational policies.; COVID-19; financiamiento de la educación básica; desigualdades educativas; políticas educativas.; COVID-19; financiamento da educação básica; desigualdades educacionais; políticas educacionais.

This article aims to estimate the impact of lower tax revenues on the funding of basic education, in the context of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Three hypothetical scenarios of lowering tax revenues are estimated and analyzed, along with their effects on the investment in education in the states and municipalities, per-pupil and overall, using a methodology that combines data on tax revenues, mandatory allocation in education, and enrollment numbers. In the most optimistic scenario, the reduction of 7% in the net tax revenues would lead to a decrease in investment in basic education of more than R$ 16.6 billion. The monthly per-pupil expenditure, which in 2018 was R$ 460 on average, could drop between 4.1% and 26.9% depending on which scenario is considered. This probable reduction in revenues requires urgent measures to attenuate the deepening of educational inequalities, converging to the transference of federal funds to sub-national governments. Finally, we highlight the economic virtue of investing in education, when considering the capillarity of education, and its character of intensive investment in personnel.