Education at a Glance 2026: Brazil
Table of contents
This country note for Education at a Glance 2026 provides an overview of the key characteristics of the education system in Brazil. In line with this year’s thematic focus, it emphasises teacher shortages while also covering other parts of the education system. The data in this note are provided for the latest available year. Readers are referred to the corresponding tables in Education at a Glance 2026 for notes and reference years.
Shortages of skilled workers have affected many sectors across the OECD in recent years, and the teaching profession is no exception. Teacher shortages manifest in different ways across education systems: in some countries, a lack of fully qualified teachers is reflected in a higher share of non-fully qualified staff, while in others a significant number of teaching positions remain unfilled.
Non-fully qualified teachers refer to teachers who do not yet meet all the requirements to be recognised as fully qualified teachers under national regulations. In most countries, they either possess the required academic qualifications but lack mandatory certification or teacher training, have completed the required teacher training but do not hold the required academic qualifications, or lack both. In Brazil, 9% of all primary and secondary teachers in public institutions were not fully qualified in 2024/25, close to the OECD average of 9.1% (Figure 1).
In per cent, full-time equivalents, public institutions
1. Year of reference differs from 2024/25: academic year 2023/24 for Denmark, Finland, France, Germany and Switzerland; calendar year 2024 for Chile and Costa Rica; calendar year 2025 for New Zealand; academic year 2025/26 for Japan.
2. Pre-primary and primary education are combined in France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Upper secondary education is excluded in Denmark, Israel and Switzerland. Upper secondary vocational education is excluded in Finland, Hungary and the Netherlands.
3. Teacher data are based on headcounts instead of full-time equivalents.
4. Year of reference differs from 2017/18: academic year 2018/19 for Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland; 2019/20 for Luxembourg and Poland; calendar year 2020 for New Zealand.
5. Including government-dependent private institutions.
6. Teachers classified as non-fully qualified in these countries are in the process of acquiring full qualification.
For data, see OECD (2026) Education at a Glance 2026: OECD Indicators, https://doi.org/10.1787/b4968bbc-en, Figure 1 and Table 1.
Recruiting second-career teachers is a common strategy for addressing teacher shortages and helps to diversify the profile of the teaching workforce. According to the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2024, on average across the OECD, 8.4% of lower secondary teachers are second-career teachers; in Brazil, they make up 11.5% of all teachers (Table 5).
According to the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2024, a large majority of lower secondary teachers (68.4%) are satisfied with their terms of employment (barring salaries) on average across the OECD. In contrast, the share of lower secondary teachers who are satisfied with their salaries is much lower at 38.7% on average. In Brazil, 44.3% of lower secondary teachers are satisfied with their terms of employment and 22.3% are satisfied with their salaries (Table 5).
High teacher turnover can indicate dissatisfaction with the profession, but the number of teachers in public institutions who leave the profession is also shaped by factors such as the age structure of the workforce, labour-market conditions and the professional culture of a country. In Brazil, 10.3% of fully qualified teachers in primary and secondary education left the profession (through retirement or resignation) in 2022, compared with an OECD average of 6.4% in 2024/25 (Table 3).
The number of teachers a system needs is not determined by student numbers alone. On average across the OECD, measured in full-time equivalents, the number of teachers in public and private primary schools rose by 13% between 2015 and 2024, even though the number of primary students rose by only 2% over the same period, a divergence driven by policy choices around class sizes, teachers’ working hours and instruction time. In Brazil, the number of primary teachers increased by 4% over this period, while the number of students decreased by 7% (Table 7).
Looking ahead, the number of children aged 5-14 in Brazil is projected to decrease by 3% between 2024 and 2033, pointing to lower demand for teachers if other policies remain unchanged (Table 7). However, as argued above, demographic trends are only one factor shaping teacher workforce needs, and their effects can vary depending on how population change is distributed across regions. Teacher workforce needs also depend on policy decisions related to class sizes, teacher attrition and funding.
Educational attainment remains at an all-time high in 2025 as more people obtain advanced qualifications. Across the OECD, 43% of working-age adults (25-64 year-olds) have a tertiary qualification, while the share of adults with upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary attainment is slightly lower at 39%. In Brazil, the share of adults with tertiary attainment in 2024 was below the OECD average at 22%, while the share of adults with upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary attainment was similar to the OECD average at 40% (Table A1.1).
The share of young adults without upper secondary attainment continues to decline across the OECD, standing at 12% in 2025. This trend is also apparent in Brazil, where the share of 25-34 year-olds without upper secondary attainment decreased from 35% to 26% between 2016 and 2024 (Table A1.2).
Youth and young adults who are neither employed nor in education or training (NEET) are a key policy concern, as prolonged periods of inactivity at a young age can have lasting negative effects on socio-economic outcomes later in life. In Brazil, 22% of all 18-24 year-olds were NEET in 2024, down from 27% in 2016 (Table A2.2).
The number of primary and secondary schools – and thus their geographical proximity to students – varies across countries. Many countries have more primary than lower secondary schools, reflecting the desire to provide education close to primary students’ homes while offering secondary students the greater choice of specialist subjects that can only be provided by larger schools. In Brazil, there are 1.65 primary schools for each lower secondary school, similar to the OECD average of 1.97 (Figure B2.4).
In most countries, there is no strong alignment between trends in the number of students and trends in the number of schools at lower secondary level. In Brazil, the number of lower secondary students increased by 0.07% annually between 2015 and 2024, while the number of lower secondary schools decreased by 0.17% annually over the same period. On average across the OECD, the number of students increased by 0.96%, while the number of schools decreased by 0.10% (Figure B2.1).
Transitions from one level of education to the next are critical junctions in a student’s trajectory and have a major influence on educational outcomes. One year after the last grade of lower secondary education, 87% of students in Brazil are enrolled in an upper secondary or other education programme, 4% of students are repeating the last grade in lower secondary and 8% are not enrolled in formal education. The share of students who are not enrolled is above the average of 5% among the 22 countries and economies with available data (Figure B3.1).
In upper secondary education, 79% of new entrants in Brazil complete a general or vocational programme within two years of the theoretical end of the programme. By this point, 1% of the cohort remain enrolled, while 20% have dropped out without qualifying (Table B3.3). In Brazil, women are 7 percentage points more likely to complete their upper secondary programme than their men peers, a gap that is larger than the gap in most other countries with available data (Table B3.2).
At tertiary level (ISCED 5-8), most OECD countries host a larger number of international students than they send abroad. On average across the OECD, outbound internationally mobile students account for 6% of all national students (whether enrolled domestically or abroad), while inbound students account for 12% of all students enrolled domestically in 2024. In Brazil the share of outbound international students is 1%, while inbound international students average 0%. The top three destination countries for outbound students in Brazil are Argentina (28%), the United States (18%) and Portugal (17%), while the top three origin countries of inbound students are Venezuela (8%), Angola (8%) and Colombia (6%) (Table B4.3. and Table B4.4).
In many countries, inbound mobility has increased faster than outbound mobility among tertiary students. On average across the OECD, the share of inbound mobile students increased by 4 percentage points between 2015 and 2024, and the share of outbound mobile students increased by 1 percentage point. In Brazil, both the share of inbound and the share of outbound students remained the same (Table B4.3).
Most investment in education comes from public sources. On average across the OECD, government expenditure on primary to tertiary education (based on initial funds, on educational institutions) corresponded to 4% of GDP in 2023, while private expenditure corresponded to 0.6%. In Brazil, government expenditure equalled 4.5% of GDP in 2023 (Table C1.8).
Government expenditure on primary to tertiary education as share of GDP (based on final funds, on educational institutions, including R&D) varies by a factor of approximately two across OECD countries (ranging from 2.4% to 5.2%), while government expenditure per student varies by a factor of ten (from USD 3 398 to USD 32 832 adjusted for purchasing power parity) as differences in income levels mean nominal expenditure tends to vary more than relative expenditure. On average across the OECD, expenditure per student from primary to tertiary education was USD 13 601 in 2023, while in Brazil it was USD 4 133 (Table C1.4. and Table C1.1).
Government expenditure on education tends to rise with the level of education. In primary education, expenditure per student was USD 4 064 in 2023 in Brazil and USD 12 893 on average across the OECD. In lower secondary education, it was USD 4 390 in Brazil and USD 14 291 on average across the OECD. Thus, Brazil is among the majority of countries where expenditure is higher at lower secondary level than at primary level (Table C3.1).
Expenditure can be divided into capital and current expenditure: the former finances investment in assets such as infrastructure, while the latter covers regular operating costs. Current expenditure can be further broken down into staff compensation and other current expenditure, such as purchases of goods and services and routine maintenance. In Brazil, 75% of current expenditure in primary educational institutions is dedicated to staff compensation compared to 79% on average across the OECD, while the remainder is dedicated to other current expenditure (Figure C3.3).
Most countries have increased their investment in pre-primary education in recent years. This is also reflected in the ratio of children to teachers. Across the OECD, the number of children enrolled at this level decreased slightly by 2% between 2015 and 2024 while the number of teachers increased by 14%, resulting in a 14% reduction in the child-to-teacher ratio. In Brazil, the number of children enrolled in pre-primary education increased by 8%, while the number of pre-primary teachers also increased by 20%, resulting in a 10% decrease of the child-to-teacher ratio (Data for chart D2.1).
Teachers spend only a fraction of their working time teaching; the remainder is devoted to other tasks, including lesson preparation and marking. On average across the OECD, primary teachers taught 770 hours per year compared to 710 hours per year in lower secondary education. In Brazil, annual minimum teaching hours were 800 in primary education and 800 in lower secondary education. Thus, Brazil was one of the few countries where teachers in primary education did not have to teach more hours than their lower secondary colleagues (Figure 2).
Net statutory teaching time in hours per year, in public institutions
Note: Please refer to the source table for information on whether the data refer to typical, minimum or maximum hours.
1. Actual teaching time (in Latvia except for pre-primary level).
2. Reference year differs from 2023. Refer to the source table for details.
3. Average planned teaching time in each school at the beginning of the school year.
For data, see OECD (2026) Education at a Glance 2026: OECD Indicators, https://doi.org/10.1787/b4968bbc-en, Figure D4.1 and Table D4.1.
Women form the majority of teachers at all levels of education except tertiary. Teachers in pre-primary education are almost entirely women with 96% of teachers being female on average across the OECD. The share of women among pre-primary teachers in Brazil is identical to the OECD average. At 66%, the share of female teachers in lower secondary education is lower, and it is below the OECD average of 68% (Table D5.1).
Across the OECD, women are more strongly represented among teachers than among school management staff. In primary education, women in Brazil accounted for 89% of teachers and 82% of school management staff in 2024, a gap of 7 percentage points. This gap was smaller than the OECD average of 15 percentage points (Figure D5.3).
Regular teacher appraisal as a quality assurance mechanism is common in some countries, but not in others. Brazil uses an appraisal mechanism with mandatory appraisals of teachers, as do 16 out of 29 countries and economies with available data (Figure D7.1).
Appraisals of schools are more widespread than those of teachers, with school inspections being used in 24 out of 28 countries and economies with available data. Brazil is among the majority of countries with a mandatory appraisal mechanism at primary or lower secondary levels (Figure D6.1).
Contact
For more information on Education at a Glance 2026 and to access the full set of indicators, see: https://doi.org/10.1787/b4968bbc-en.
For more information on the methodology used during the data collection for each indicator, the references to the sources and the specific notes for each country, see Education at a Glance 2026: Sources, Methodologies and Technical Notes, https://doi.org/10.1787/dcf64a14-en.
For general information on the methodology, please refer to the OECD Handbook for Internationally Comparative Education Statistics 2018, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264304444-en.
Updated data can be found online at http://data-explorer.oecd.org/ and by following the StatLinks in the publication.
Explore, compare and visualise more data and analysis using the Education GPS: https://gpseducation.oecd.org/.
Questions can be directed to the Education at a Glance team at the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills: EDU.EAG@oecd.org.
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