Instituto TIM – Busca Ativa Escolar

Platform supporting public managers in identifying, controlling and tracking children and teenagers that are out of school or under risk of evasion

Proposal

There are 2.8 million children and teenagers in Brazil, aged 4 to 17 years, out of school, as per the 2016 School Census. The Constitution sets forth that education until 17 years of age is mandatory in the country, while the National Education Plan determines that universalization of access to basic education is under state and city responsibility. Knowing who are the out of school children and teenagers, where they are and why they’re away from classes is the first step to the assertive preparation of policies, programs and projects.

About the initiative

An innovative approach for the active search for out of school children and teenagers, Busca Ativa Escolar https://buscaativaescolar.org.br/ boosts the coordination of several areas of public management, as everyone has access to the same database. The platform enables cities to perform cross-references, identify the largest demands, classify them by neighborhood or age group, and verify opened and closed cases. Thus, managers can rely on more subsidies for monitoring and making decisions.

The system flow begins with the mobilization of the public sector’s professionals network that does field work (social assistants, healthcare agents, guardianship counselors, etc.). These professionals identify out of school children and the reason for it, and record these warnings into the system through SMS, app or web interface. Each case is assigned to a technician, who performs field work and a thorough research on the child and his/her family. The information gathered is then forwarded to solving groups – that act to solve the problem preventing the child from attending school – in order for the child to be (re)registered. He/she is tracked throughout the school year to ensure his/her permanence in classrooms.

Busca Ativa Escolar was developed in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the National Union of Municipal Directors of Education (Undime) and the National Collegiate of Municipal Social Assistance Managers (Congemas), and is aligned with the objectives of Out of School Children Initiative, of UNICEF.

Partnerships

Results

3,169

enrolled cities

16

enrolled states

60,000

(re)registrations performed

Acknowledgements

One year after the Busca Activa Escolar national launch, 20% of all Brazilian municipalities were already participating in the initiative. Currently, more than 56% are participating.