New Focus on Brazil

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Sixth country in the world in terms of population, and fifth in terms of territory, Brazil is also the first economy in Latin America. The alphabetisation rate of young people went from 95% in 2000 to 99% in late 2010s, and almost all Brazilian children go to school. The number of students in higher education went up four times during the last 25 years, from 1.75 million in 1995 to close to 9 million in 2020.

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Higher education in Brazil

Higher education welcomes about 9 million students in 2,448 institutions.

• It is structured in two levels: graduação, equivalent to our 1st university cycle of either 4 or 5 years of studies leading to a licenciatura degree to become a teacher, or bacharelado: while the second cycle, pos-graduaçao is broken down in 2 years leading to a mestrado, then 4 additional years at least for passing a doctorate.
• 77 % of students are registered in private institutions. Out of 2,574 institutions registered in 2021, 2,261 (88%) are private, while only 313 are public. Out of all institutions, 204 are universities, of which a majority (55%) is public. Most private institutions are carrying out training but no research, which is why more public structures are among universities. Public institutions dependent at 43% of federate States, 38% of federal level and 19% city level.
• Between 2008 and 2018, the Brazilian private education network experimented a growth of 59% versus 8% for the public. The level of training given in private institutions is very variable. The number of students over the period generally augmented by 47%.
• According to Times Higher Education, a monthly newspaper specialised in higher studies, Brazil is still the country in Latin America providing the best education in higher education. The 150 universities ranked including 52 Brazilian. In addition to Unicamp (3rd in the ranking) and USP (2d), 4 additional Brazilian universities are present in the Top 10: PUC in Rio  de Janeiro (4th), the Federal Univeristy of São Paulo (Unifesp), The Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and the State University of São Paulo (Unesp).

The internationalisation of Brazilian higher education

The national policy of attractiveness for international students mainly consist in measures for inward mobility of students from Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and neighbour countries in Latin America. Over the last five years, the decrease by half o of credits distributed to higher education and research did not facilitate the internationalisation of Brazilian higher education.

The issue of attractiveness of its higher education and research system has long been neglected by Brazil, which considered itself more like a country which should send its students and teachers-researchers to train abroad, including in France, and since the 2000s, in English-speaking countries. This trend shows in the statistics of student mobility, since Brazil only register 22,000 international students welcomed while sending about 90,000 students in mobility in 2020.

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The mobility of Brazilian students experimented a spike between 2015 and 2020 (+77%), a much faster pace than the global average (+32%). Brazilian students in mobility mostly choose 3 destinations: Argentina (23%), Portugal (20%) and the United States (18%).

Two emerging destinations experiment a sharp increase of the number of Brazilian students welcomed: Australia (+597% between 2015 and 2020) and Canada (+197%). France is the 3rd European destination after Portugal and Germany, and the 7th at global level. The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on mobilities still don’t appear in these statistics, but they may temporarily reduce Brazilian mobility.

The political changeover on 1st January 2023 put back education and culture as a priority of public policies. The means of universities, the studies and research scholarship were sharply enhanced, and the federal means of research (national research fund, among others) were increased.

Faubai

Faubai is the Brazilian association for international education. It was created in 1988 and gathers the managers and heads of international relation departments of more than 200 Brazilian higher education institutions. It promotes the integration and training of managers and organises seminars, workshops, regional, national and international meetings, and an annual conference.

The association encourages cooperation with the different types of Brazilian higher education institutions in the country and abroad, in collaboration with higher education institutions, agencies, diplomatic representatives, and international entities and programmes. The FAUBAI fair will be held from 15 to 19 April 2023 in Belo Horizonte.

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Higher education and scientific cooperation between France and Brazil

Franco-Brazilian university cooperation registers 1,359 active agreements between universities, of which 276 are dual degrees. Brazilian private and public higher education institutions are independent to conclude agreements and design joint supervision schemes and dual degrees. Two bilateral training programmes, BRAFITEC & BRAFAGRI, are crossed training courses of student-engineers (for BRAFITEC) and agronomists (BRAFAGRI) based on projects designed over the long course between partners of French and Brazilian higher education partners boosting crossed exchanges between students and teachers.

For the years 2021 and 2022, Brazilians account for the 6th nationality with most scholarship grants managed by Campus France, with 486 scholarship holders and 262 researchers welcomed in 230 French institutions. The average duration of their stay is six months.

In late 2017, the CAPES entity launched its institutional programme of internationalisation PrInt, with a 300 million reais fund. In August 2018, 36 institutions were selected based on criteria of excellence, and received subsidies to implement their respective projects. A large majority mentioned France as their main partner, so they are institutions to prioritise in the implementation of various schemes (readers, chairs, dual degrees, summer schools and doctorates, joint research entities, etc.).

The CAPES-COFECUB between Brazil and France developed over the last 40 years contributed with success to academic exchanges, scientific production and training of young researchers. It is financed partly by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, and managed by the French Committee of Evaluation of University and Scientific Cooperation with Brazil (COFECUB). For the Brazilian part, it is financed and administered by the CAPES. The objective of the programme is to launch or develop scientific cooperation and relations between research centres and universities of both countries through support to common research project of excellence, committing the mobility of researchers, while prioritising training courses at doctoral and post-doctoral level. 87 projects are under way in 2023.

The France Alumni Brazil network

The France Alumni network extends the experience between France and Brazilian students. The network was launched in Brazil in 2015 and registers today 12,500 members on the platform. As true ambassadors of studies in France, alumni play a critical role in the promotion of the French university system and facilitate Franco-Brazilian cooperation.