Brazil education: the deals keep coming

Pan Kwan Yuk – Financial Times, 04/23/2013

It is often said that you can’t put a price on education.

Not so in Brazil, where private sector education has become big business. The move on Monday by Kroton Educacional to acquire rival Anhanguera Educacional Participações in a R$5bn ($2.48bn) all stock deal is the latest in a wave of buyouts to hit the sector in recent years.

The combination of Kroton, Brazil’s largest listed private education provider with a market capitalisation of R$7.3bn, and Anhanguera, the country’s number two, will create one of the world’s biggest for-profit education company, with 1m students and a market cap of R$12bn.

Read more…

IRP announces two new media initiatives for 2013: apply now!

IRP, 10/15/2012

The International Reporting Project (IRP)is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for two new kinds of global reporting grants in 2013. For the first time in IRP’s history, each of these two new fellowship programs will be open to non-US media professionals as well as to US citizens.

In addition to these two new programs, additional IRP reporting fellowships on specialized topics may be announced soon. Watch our web site for news and updates!

Here are the details of the two new programs in 2013. Qualified applicants may apply to either or both programs.

Click here to apply for the IRP New Media Journalists Trip to India: Examining Child Survival

Click here to apply for IRP’s New Media Fellowships in 2013

New York Times to start Brazil web edition in ’13

Melodie Warner – The Wall Street Journal, 10/15/2012

New York Times Co. NYT -1.11% unveiled plans to launch an online, Portuguese-language edition of the Times in Brazil during 2013 as the newspaper publisher looks to expand its global readership.

The media company said the Brazil edition will feature English to Portuguese translations of the Times’s journalism alongside original work by local contributing writers.

The Times will publish 30 to 40 articles a day on the Brazil site, and about one third of the reporting will be original content designed specifically for the site.

“Brazil is an international hub for business that boasts a robust economy, which has brought more and more people into the middle class,” said New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. “As the world gets smaller and digital technology enables us to reach around the globe to attract readers with an interest in high quality news, Brazil is a perfect place for The New York Times to take the next step in expanding our global reach.”

Read more…

Professors’ salaries should be based on merit- An interview with Simon Schwartzman on the strike at Brazil’s federal universities

O Estado de S.Paulo, 8/6/2012

Following a series of strikes at Brazil’s federal universities which started in May 2012, Simon Schwartzman, an education expert and a past Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, offered  comments in an interview to daily O Estado de S.Paulo.  This is a summary of the interview, available here in the original version in Portuguese.

While many on strike argue that all professors should be paid equally in order to create a better environment for education, Schwartzman offers some insight on the importance of prioritizing performance.

Labor unions leaders have stated that equal pay helps to protect the academic  autonomy of the federal universities. Schwartzman believes, however, that  upholding merit of teaching is an integral aspect of Brazil’s system of higher education. Universities could improve by observing performance, assessing professors and analyzing feedback from peers and students to see how professors compare. With external assessment, the professor’s performance can be objectively assessed. An outstanding performance  would be awarded with higher pay or even promotions. This is precisely the autonomy that Schwartzman argues labor unions should strive for, which is finding the most successful teaching methods and exercising them. Without this system of performance-based evaluation, Schwartzman says  Brazil’s federal universities could enter a vicious cycle of uninspiring teaching and a lack of motivation from students to research and innovate. When this happens, disenchanted professors and students transfer to private universities, further hurting the education integrity of public universities.

Brazil could learn a lesson from the myriad of public universities world-wide that charge tuition fees. Schwartzman suggests by charging tuition to those who can  afford it and offer scholarships to those who cannot, Brazil’s public universities could gain some financial autonomy and gain the freedom to decide how they fund programs, research, and development of the university.

Scott Wallace launches “The Unconquered” in a paperback edition

The paperback edition of The Unconquered , by Scott Wallace, a former  scholar of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute, went on sale  July 24, 2012.

While on assignment  for National Geographic in 2002, Wallace made a three month expedition  into the depths of the Brazilian Amazon to study its most isolated of tribes. His mission: to explore and report on the  territory of the flecheiros, or Arrow People, (named for the poison-tipped arrows they use) without infiltrating the tribe to respect their autonomy and desire not to be contacted. In The Unconquered, Wallace studies this tribe of the Javari valley by observing them with a hands-off mentality. He followed  an uncharted path which led him to encounter the tribe in perplexing areas as well as meet the threats to their settlements deep in the jungle. From gold prospectors to mining crews, his exposure to very real threats facing these un-contacted tribes led Wallace to become an activist for indigenous rights and address the need to practice conservation at a global level to protect areas like the Javari valley, which hosts more tribes than just the flecheiros. Sebastian Junger, author of War and The Perfect Storm has called the The Unconquered  ”a riveting and brilliant book blessed with the pacing of a novel but carrying the great weight of world events. This is journalism at its very  best”.

Wallace wrote most of The Unconquered as a Public Policy Scholar at the Brazil Institute from May to October of 2009. In  November 21, 2011, he  returned to the Wilson Center to launch book. The Brazilian edition of The Unconquered will be published in January 2013 by Objetiva.

For more information, click here.

Building bridges from B.C. to Brazil

Stephen Toope, Arvind Gupta – Vancouver Sun, 05/02/2012

In our rapidly evolving global context, Western nations, including Canada, are asking the question “To whom does the future belong?” We watch with wonder, and not a little envy, as emerging economies spread their wings and take off, seemingly overnight. Countries that have struggled with poverty and development are becoming economic miracles, blessed with stratospheric growth and a new-found confidence to compete in complex industries with established world leaders.

Brazil is one of these new powerhouses.

With a population of more than 190 million, Brazil is set to become one of the world’s top five economies. It is pursuing a bold future, and a key part of its strategy is a commitment to invest significant resources in higher education and research, particularly in so-called STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Read more…

Brazil connection will pay off for MSU

News-Leader.com, 04/26/2012

Students, faculty, local businesses and our community as a whole all stand to gain from a promising new partnership linking Missouri State University with two universities in Brazil.

Last week, MSU officials announced separate agreements with Pontifical Catholic University, a prestigious private school in Brazil’s largest city, Sao Paulo, and a lesser-known state university in Maringa, a southern Brazilian city about twice the size of Springfield.

As early as this fall, additional Brazilian students will be on campus here, and local students will have new opportunities to study abroad in one of the world’s most fascinating and rapidly developing countries.

Read more…

Understanding Brazil

William Sapp – Geopolitical Monitor, 04/12/2012

*Dr. Tedd Hewitt, a Public Policy Scholar with the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, discusses Brazil-Canada relations.

Dr. Hewitt is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada and Visiting Public Policy Scholar at the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

In this 45 minute interview, Dr. Hewitt offers critical insight into Brazil’s role in the 21st century and its ascendency to global power.  Dr. Hewitt addresses a wide spectrum of issues ranging from the history and shape of Brazilian-Canadian relations to what Canada can learn from Brazil’s technological advancement and expertise.

Read more…

Brazil becoming “The Grown-Up BRIC” according to Thomson Reuters report

Thomson Reuters – PR Newswire/Sacramento Bee, 03/06/2012

Brazil’s rapidly expanding middle class and complex intellectual property framework is creating a host of new opportunities and challenges for western firms, according to a new report published today by Thomson Reuters. The report, “The Grown-Up BRIC: Innovation & Brand Expansion in Brazil,” tracks patent and trademark activity, as well as scientific literature output, over the last decade to benchmark current levels of innovation and brand expansion.

Following are some of the key findings of the new research:

• Recession-Proof Patent Growth: The total number of unique inventions issued in published patent applications and granted patents in Brazil grew 64 percent from 2001 to 2010.

Read more…

Bridging the gap: How do you encourage Brazilians to be entrepreneurs?

Alexandre Goncalves – Txchnologist, 02/21/2012

Eight years ago, José Fernando Perez, then a physics professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), asked his students: “Did you know that many students at MIT have trouble completing their doctorates because they are so preoccupied with their own companies? And what about you? How many of you have ever thought about opening up your own business?” The students gave him puzzled looks.

That year, Perez left USP and his position as scientific director of the Research Foundation of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) to found Recepta Biopharma, the first – and so far the only – Brazilian company to conduct Phase 2 clinical trials of a cancer therapy. “There is no culture of entrepreneurship in our universities,” explains Perez. This applies to the professors as well. “In the U.S., some professors leave research institutions or universities when they discover something that has the potential to become a competitive product. This is how many so-called startups arise. They provide tremendous economic momentum and drive innovation. In Brazil, very few would dare leave their university posts,” says Peres, who proved an exception to the rule.

The gap between academia and industry in Brazil arose out of political turmoil. An overview of science in Brazil published in December 2010 in the journal Science, suggests that Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 – 1985 was the root cause of the universities’ aversion to private enterprise. Over the decades of military rule, universities became strongholds of political opposition and Marxist thought. As Maria Bernadette Cordeiro de Sousa, the Dean of Research at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, explains, “we isolated ourselves from large companies which supported the military. They were not allowed to access universities, which became closed-off spaces. This needs to change.”

Read more…