One year after the national launch of the Busca Ativa Escolar platform, 1,111 municipalities already participate in the initiative, which corresponds to 20% of the total of Brazilian municipalities. In addition, 5 states – Bahia, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, Goiás and Amapá – have joined the platform, which connects public managers from different areas (Education, Health, Social Assistance, Planning) and supports governments in identifying, registering and managing children and adolescents who are out of school.
“Busca Ativa Escolar pays attention to children and adolescents less benefited by local public policies. There are also those who are vulnerable and who may not attend school, due to lack of school transportation, teenage pregnancy, child labor, among other reasons. The idea is to map structural and conjunctural problems that prevent the access of boys and girls to the fundamental right to education, and also to take concrete actions in an intersectoral way to solve these problems”, explains the head of Education of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Brazil, Ítalo Dutra.
Up to now, in the results panel of the Busca Ativa Escolar system, the main causes for children and adolescents to be out of school are “avoidance because the school feels uninteresting” and “lack of documentation of the child or adolescent” (55% and 12%, respectively). The expectation is that with the adhesion and engagement of new agents to the strategy, municipalities and states can increasingly approach real diagnoses and concrete actions to guarantee access to education for the 2.8 million Brazilian children and adolescents who are out of school today.
Result of a partnership between Instituto TIM, UNICEF, the National Union of Municipal Directors of Education (Undime) and the National Board of Municipal Managers for Social Assistance (Congemas), the Busca Ativa Escolar platform started to be developed in 2014, when UNICEF and Instituto TIM joined forces in the context of the global mobilization Fora da Escola Não Pode!, with the objective of offering to the Brazilian municipalities an innovative approach of active search of children out of school with the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).
The pilot of the project was carried out in 2016 in São Bernardo do Campo-SP, and its official launch took place in Brasília-DF, in June 2017, at an event attended by Education, Health and Social Assistance managers at municipal, state and federal levels, as well as education specialists and journalists. The platform was also presented at the XIX National Meeting of the National Collegiate of Municipal Social Assistance Managers, the 16th National Forum of Municipal Directors of Education and the XXVII National Meeting of UNCME (Union of Municipal Education Councils).
A new presentation of the platform will be held on July 25, in Belém-PA, during the XXXIV National Congress of Municipal Health Secretariats. At the occasion, a solemn act will be held to mark the establishment of the new strategic partnership of the project, the National Council of Municipal Health Secretariats (CONASEMS).
