The Challenges of Gender Equity as a Sustainable Development Goal in Brazil - Assignment Example

Question 3: Sustainable Development Goal in Brazil (Gender Equality)

The Challenges of Gender Equity as a Sustainable Development Goal in Brazil

There exist female leadership and political influence gap in Brazi. Currently, the country has elected only one female governor into office out of 27 states (Aguilar et al., 2015). It has also had only one female president, Dilma Rousseff, between 2011 and 2016 though women are 53% of the electorate population. Furthermore, they also correspond to about half of the national personnel. The Brazilian election laws allow 30% of the contestants in each political party to be women, but unfortunately, they currently have only 9% of the Congress (Dos Santos et al., 2018).

There is a wide pay gap between women and men. Women in Brazil earn 25% less than men's earnings (Dias et al., 2018). They receive less for their work, yet they acquire higher degrees and commit more in their occupations than males. However, still, only 16%of executive directors are women in financial devices (Dias et al., 2018). Women encounter many challenges in professional growth, do not easily access the labor industry, and are, to a lesser extent, valued for their work.

Fight for gender equality is one of the development goals which are almost achieved in Brazil. There is an organized women's movement in Brazil (Soares et al., 2018). The participation of women in society has increased with the conception of new policies to decrease gender discrimination and let go of old perceptions of the roles of women in society. During the last period, women's status has dramatically improved with increasing demand for rights for gender equity. With the inception of the feminist movement, new public agencies and policies were formulated in the government docket to promote gender equity in the country. Brazil has succeeded in institutionalizing women's rights with progressive participation of women in formal jobs and the right to acquire, manage, and administer property.

There is an expansion of women's education in Brazil (Lam et al., 2016). The level of literacy for men is correspondent to that of women since the government provides equal opportunities to both genders. In 2004, the national plan of policies for women was formulated to consolidate and promote educational policies for equitable gender participation.in 2010the literacy rate of Brazilian women was estimated at 90.7%. While that of men was 90.1%, the majority of students in universities are women, 53% of the total population (Muller et al., 2011).

Women in Brazil have the right to engage in public activities. The government, with the backing of the civil society, has been establishing policies that encourage women liberation, including partaking in civic activities and politics. In programs such as "my house, my life" created intentionally for poor people to buy their own houses, 80% of beneficiaries are women (Houtzager et al., 2011). Another program is the "family scholarship," where conditioned money is directed to low-income families (Arantes et al., 2016).

Question 5

An example of a policy response by the Brazilian government to reduce poverty is family scholarship. It is a cash transfer program that gives financial help to poor Brazilian households (Miotto et al., 2015). The target families are those with proportionate income below the poverty level, which is at 21.0%, based on information from household surveys (Engbom et al., 2018). The government created conditional cash transfer platforms in 2003 (Alves et al. 2019), whereby one is excluded from receiving the cash if not utilized. The three main areas are; enhance easy access to basic social needs in health and education, financial transfer to promote quick poverty alleviation and supplementary programs to encourage growth family as well as raise social mobility.

There is an advanced approach to eradicate poverty in Brazil as well as a social safety strategy. This policy aims to reduce poverty and inequality in Brazil, break the generational poverty cycle by asking recipients to commit to human capital, and empower the beneficiaries.

Payments are made every month and deposited directly to electronic benefit cards of the beneficiary's preferentially female head of household. Families in extreme poverty are given a maximum amount of BRL 242. In return, the recipients are mandated to take their children aged 6-15 years to school, ensure that those below seven years are vaccinated, and go for routine health care checkups. They include nutritional care, monitoring of growth and development in children, and prenatal care for pregnant women—those who do not follow the routine risk being withdrawn from the program of receiving the cash for the poor (Alves et al. 2019). The government supervises their compliance via health and education ministries.

Through this law, the regime has been able to lower poverty by half from 9.712% to 4.332% (Maiorano et al., 2017). The poor households can achieve the minimum standard of life and better their self-worth with their children having a chance to education and upward social mobility rather than being forced to child labor. According to (Ferreira, 2017) data obtained from the Brazilian Home Survey and also an institute of applied economic research indicates that this programmer is responsible for poverty reduction in Brazil.

Written reports indicate that it has reduced the extreme level of poverty, decreased dropout rates at school, and enhanced daily school attendance (Cavalcanti, 2017). It is estimated that between 2003 and 2009, the program managed to reduce the poverty level by 12%-18%, showing that it is cost-effective because it costs 0.5% of Gross Domestic Product and benefits more than a quarter of the Brazilian population (Olsen, 2009). It also accounts for more than a 15% drop in the Gina coefficient in the first ten years of the 21st century. In 2017, the programmer led to 3.2 million people rising out of poverty and 3.4 million moving out of the extreme level of debt.

Question 6

Access and quality of primary education is a significant challenge in meeting global education management goals. Under the school for all plans, the primary focus has been universal access to education (Ball, 2012). Although there has been a rapid worldwide increase in numbers of children in primary school, the attainment of quality education is still futile (Tapp et al., 2016). An increase in learner enrolment implies bigger classrooms, high student to teacher ratio, and shortage in materials for learning and inadequate school facilities. Research has shown that most of the children attending school in developing countries get a poor quality of primary education (McEwan, 2015). It implies that completion of primary education does not guarantee the acquisition of essential academic skills by the child. It is due to underpaid, poorly trained teachers, Overcrowded schoolrooms, and unacquainted language of teaching. Other challenges that may exist are deficiency of necessary teaching instruments like pens, paper, textbooks, chalkboards, and poor sanitation (Prochner, 2010).

Quality primary education is dependent on a course of study that is related to the reality and needs of a learner. Research on knowledge for masses shows that learning outcomes of learners rely on professionally trained teachers who are well equipped with suitable teaching and learning tools (Meyer, 2017). The study indicates that sixty percent of learners do not achieve the minimum knowledge levels in arithmetic and reading. Deficiency in learning start beforehand in early grades, and such children often struggle to be at par in subsequent years, and most of them drop out of school.

Lack of funding inhibits better education. Global donor support for education aid has decreased tremendously (Birchler, 2016). The donor fund was able to provide resources with an infrastructure needed in schools to accommodate more children. Students cannot get access to individual teacher attention due to big classroom sizes, have higher grade repetition, and high dropout rates. Academic outcomes can be improved with adequate allocation of funds to schools. Lack of finances in schools affects all aspects of schooling from low salaries for teachers to poor education outcomes in learners.im most undeveloped countries, most children drop out of school, leading to unemployment, exploitation in child labor, poor health, and poor economic development.

Education Development Actors and how they overcome the Challenges

The two main challenges in education are funding and access to quality primary education. The government is the main actor. It can overcome these challenges by capacitating the ministry of education to effectively monitor school program implementation and expenditure sand ensure education is focused on learning processes (Gadenne, 2017). Training of education executives is necessary for quality education. Teachers should be mandated to stick to professionalism from the beginning and throughout their line of work. They should be given opportunities to train with the inclusion of topics like gender, disability, and composition. The government can ensure quality education for all students by closing the fund gap by increasing state education funding on public schools.

Reference List

Alves, F.J.O., Machado, D.B., and Barreto, M.L., 2019. Effect of the Brazilian cash transfer program on suicide rates: a longitudinal analysis of the Brazilian municipalities: social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 54(5), pp.599-606.

Arantes, R., and Frazão, P., 2016. Income as a protective factor for dental caries among Indigenous people from Central Brazil. Journal of health care for the poor and underserved, 27(1), pp.81-89.

Aguilar, R., Cunow, S., and Desposato, S., 2015. Choice sets, gender, and candidate choice in Brazil. Electoral Studies, 39, pp.230-242.

Ball, S.J., 2012. Global education inc New policy networks and the neoliberal imaginary. Routledge.

Birchler, K., and Michaelowa, K., 2016. Making aid work for education in developing countries: An analysis of aid effectiveness for primary education coverage and quality—International Journal of Educational Development, 48, pp.37-52.

Cavalcanti, B.S., 2017. Public administration for poverty eradication and reducing inequality: the Brazilian experience.

Dias, M., and Aylmer, R., 2018. Is the Brazilian Civil Service reform about to succeed. Global Journal of Political Science and Administration (GJPSA), 6(2), pp.13-25.

Dos Santos, P.A., and Wylie, K.N., 2018. The Representation of Women. Routledge Handbook of Brazilian Politics, pp.57-71.

Engbom, N. and Moser, C., 2018. Earnings inequality and the minimum wage: Evidence from Brazil. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis-Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Paper, 7, pp.18-50.

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Gadenne, L., 2017. Tax me, but spend wisely? Sources of public finance and government accountability. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, pp.274-314.

Houtzager, P.P., and Acharya, A.K., 2011. Associations, active citizenship, and the quality of democracy in Brazil and Mexico. Theory and Society, 40(1), pp.1-36.

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Meyer, J.W., Kamens, D. and Benavot, A., 2017. School knowledge for the masses: World models and national primary curricular categories in the twentieth century (Vol. 36). Routledge.

Miotto, A.P.S. and Parente, J., 2015. Antecedents and consequences of household financial management in Brazilian lower-middle-class. Revista de Administração de Empresas, 55(1), pp.50-64.

Maiorano, D. and Manor, J., 2017. Poverty reduction, inequalities and human development in the BRICS: policies and outcomes. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 55(3), pp.278-302.

McEwan, P.J., 2015. Improving learning in primary schools of developing countries: A meta-analysis of randomized experiments. Review of Educational Research, 85(3), pp.353-394.

Muller, J., and Sauvant, K.P., 2011. Annual Review of United Nations Affairs 2009-2010. Oxford University Press, Incorporated.

Olsen, N. and Bishop, J., 2009. The financial costs of REDD: evidence from Brazil and Indonesia. IUCN.

Prochner, L., 2010. A history of early childhood education in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. UBC Press.

Soares, V., Costa, A.A.A., Buarque, C.M., Dora, D.D., and Sant'Anna, W., 2018. Brazilian feminism and women's movements: A two-way street. In The Challenge Of Local Feminisms (pp. 302-323). Routledge.

Tapp, A.R. and Meyer-Looze, C.L., 2016. Visionary Principals and School District Leadership for a Globally-Connected World. Teaching in a Globally-Connected World: Preparing Learners for the Future, p.71.