Qualidade e equidade da educação e crescimento econômico na Amazônia Brasileira

Abstract

The nine Brazilian states at the Legal Amazon present economic and social indicators below the national average, even though they are inserted in a region rich in natural resources. Its territory is quite significant, occupying an area corresponding to 59% of the national territory, where live 13% of the population of the country. In the educational field, the region also presents the worst results in the proficiency tests applied by the Federal Government, in addition to having schools with precarious infrastructure when comparing with the rest of Brazil. It is well known that a more educated population tends to present better indicators of labor productivity, leading to growth in the level of income and quality of life, in addition to increasing environmental awareness, leading to less degradation of the environment, which is a relevant factor , given the characteristics of the region. This paper aims to investigate the factors that influence the level of learning of the Amazonian population and how formal education impacts the income of the population and the economic growth observed in the region. Based on that, using educational microdata from the Prova Brasil 2015 and from municipal data, econometric techniques of Ordinary Least Squares were used to generate an indicator of Inequality of Educational Opportunity; multilevel modeling to determine the effects of the school and the municipality on the students' scores in the Prova Brasil, and; models in Panel Data to analyze the economic growth in the cities of the Amazon. The results indicate that the nine states of the region present the greatest inequalities of educational opportunity, and these are mainly caused by economic and educational issues of the family and by previous disapproval in school; it was also observed that the greatest influence on performance in the Prova Brasil is due to personal and family issues of the student, and both school and regional factors influence very little, which differs from that observed for the State of São Paulo (used as reference) where variables related to teachers are relevant to the student's grade, and; Finally, economic growth in the municipalities of the Legal Amazon is little influenced by the Human Capital Stock of the population and deforestation has a positive influence on the growth of municipal GDP.