The education market in Brazil continues to grow, both in terms of the number of HEIs (Higher Education Institutions) and students. Data from the 2019 Higher Education Census, carried out by Inep (National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira), reveal a total of 15.59 million undergraduate vacancies in the private network, once morest 837 thousand in the public network.
At the same time, a survey carried out by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) in 2019 revealed that the education sector grew 37.5% between 2013 and 2017. In the period, the segment went from 1.3 million active companies to almost 1 .8 million.
Márcio Tobias, rector of UNIFLOR, points out that the market observes a more equal division between distance and face-to-face students, especially in higher education. “In 2020, Brazil had 8.6 million university students, 56% of which were on-campus and 44% in distance learning, according to data from the Higher Education Census”, he reports.
For Tobias, it is important to reflect on the challenges of HEIs in the face of the new market, following the sector’s consolidation and competition with large educational groups. “In addition, it is worth reviewing how this consolidation affected competitiveness in the use of educational technologies and academic and financial management”.
Still according to the dean, the strengthening of large educational groups led to an unprecedented concentration in the education market.
“The aggressive commercial expansion of these groups, listed on the stock exchange and with priority on short-term financial results, expanded the offer of courses in an unprecedented way, which is good”, he points out. “Despite this, this expansion brings a commoditization of education and an abrupt drop in the average ticket. If, on the one hand, it accelerated the process of popularization and massification of education, on the other, it did so without any gains in the quality of education”, he adds.
Tobias says that the process of concentration of education was carried out without any protection for local colleges and brought, in its wake, an unprecedented breakdown of traditional institutions. “The process might have been more balanced,” he says.
Education needs to humanize technology
From the perspective of UNIFLOR’s rector, the market faces the challenge of consolidating digital mechanisms as an integral and inseparable part of teaching and reconciling technology with fundamental humanization in education. In other words, the challenge is to insert the available technology and humanize it.
“The consolidation accelerated a process, already under way, of increasing the efficiency and productivity of HEIs. If, before, efficient academic and financial management was an option for improving management, now it is a question of survival – it is a prerequisite”, he says.
Tobias draws attention to the fact that the concentration on teaching was carried out by large companies located in the largest capitals in the country, which often do not understand the needs of people who live in the countryside or far from large urban centers. “There is an unfilled gap”, he concludes.
