Discouragement and little information keep students away from the 4th year of high school in SP

With the arrival of pandemic gives Covid-19 (coronavirus), students and teachers had to reinvent themselves to face a completely remote school year. Even with the efforts of professionals in the educationthe government of the State of São Paulo realized the deficits caused by difficulties in accessing online education and decided to create the fourth year of High School, the option of an extra year of study for students who want to prepare better.

A very well publicized but little explained attitude in the opinion of André Sapanos from APEOESP (Union of Official Teaching Teachers of the State of São Paulo). “The government, despite the advertisements it has made about the fourth year of high school, has not made it clear to students, nor to school boards and teachers, how this recovery opportunity will work. It’s more like propaganda”, says the trade unionist.

All information and support was needed in a year when school dropouts reached stratospheric levels. In 2020, the school dropout rate in Brazil reached 10 million. If, on the one hand, the illiteracy rate in Brazil has been falling over the years, on the other hand, the challenge of completing training, which was already enormous, has worsened. More than half of the students did not even finish high school, according to the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). The problem already affects 69.5 million Brazilians.

Valéria Alveiro, a teacher in Ribeirão Pires, a city in the ABC region of São Paulo, says that some students in her third-year high school classes dropped out to start working or simply because they were unable to keep up with the content even with all the resources offered as far as possible by the directorates. of schools. “We try to help students as much as possible, with printed activities, Google classroom, answering students’ questions practically 24 hours a day by message, but even so, many gave up”, explains the professional.

The educator also says that, even with the evasion, the students received the opportunity this January to make up for lost time. “In the schools where I teach, we opted to give students one more chance this month, but even so, the reflections of 2020 will always be present in their lives.”

Sapanos thinks the government makes a mistake twice by putting 40 students in a room: it is neither good for learning nor recommended in terms of health. “Teachers will have enormous difficulty knowing about the unlearned content and helping the student to recover. In this sense, it is a mistake for the government to want to set up classrooms with 40 students. There will be many students with different gaps. The ideal would be rooms with a reduced number to work on.”

Gabrielle Bomtempo Pucci considered attending the fourth year of high school, but opted to take a preparatory course for college entrance exams. She dreams of studying Hospitality and Tourism, as a higher education course. “With the continuity of the pandemic, I imagined that the fourth year would be the same as the third, which does not pay off for me, since my goal is to enter a university. I cannot lose another year”, explains the student.

Another student who gave up the option is Eduarda de Oliveira Martins. As she was close to turning 18, she thought it best to try to enroll in the technical accounting course at ETEC (State Technical School), in her hometown of Ribeirão Pires.” Since I found out about the possibility of the fourth year, I thought about doing it because I had a lot of difficulty learning last year, I finished my studies without knowing anything about the third year of high school, but now I want to make up for lost time with courses, ”she says.

CLAUDIA’s reporter spent days looking for students interested in attending the fourth year of high school, but most of the students we found chose to make up for lost time with other teaching options.

Sapanos says that, for the alternative to work, students and teachers should receive support, which did not happen even in times without a pandemic. “Teachers had to use personal devices to teach or invest in notebooks, tablets, telephones. And still trying to learn how to use the tools offered by the government with delay. Nothing replaces face-to-face teaching, especially in this learning phase, ”he says.” The students who need us the most are the ones most neglected by the government because they don’t have decent conditions to carry out their studies at home. Difficulty accessing the internet is a clear example.”

The government of the State of São Paulo informs that all enrollments for the fourth year of secondary education were carried out in 2020. And students who decide this year to participate in the option can contact the respective Board of Education, from Wednesday from Friday the 20th to the 29th of January.

The objective is to offer face-to-face classes, but it all depends on evidence from the health area. The measure was created to address the difficulties faced by students during the pandemic. “This expansion aims to deepen knowledge and correct possible gaps in learning in certain disciplines. The measure aims to contribute to the integral formation of students and support them in entering higher education, if they so wish. The student must choose between 3 and 13 disciplines to compose their curriculum”, informs the State.

According to the State, each school has autonomy to develop its reception action. As for the material, students will use the same ones they had access to in the 3rd year. The beginning of the 2021 school year will be on February 1st. And in order not to overload teachers, Seduc will open a process for hiring 10,000 temporary teachers with the aim of having these teachers teach classes in person. Interested parties must register by January 20.