Brazil is one of the countries where there are fewer resilient students, those who despite the poverty condition can achieve good school performance. An OECD study (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) shows only 2.1% of Brazilian students with this profile. The research analyzed results of the last edition of Pisa, the largest international evaluation of education made by 15 year olds. The average resilience among OECD member countries is 25.2%.

In the ranking of 71 participating countries, Brazil was 62nd, below other Latinos like Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. One of the reasons is that low-income students, in general, attend the worst schools. "Brazil still has a long way to ensure that students have equal access to educational opportunities regardless of the origin of their parents or where they live," one of the authors of the OECD study Francesco Avvisati.

Resilient are the students who are among the 25% poorest in the country and reached at least Pisa's level 3 performance in the three areas assessed - Mathematics, Science and Reading. For the OECD, level 3 is the minimum necessary for the young person to have "a life with learning opportunities".

While resilience is also a personal trait, educational policies and practices can reduce student vulnerability, the report says. We tabulated the factors that most influence this positive result.

One of the most important is a good school environment, without serious discipline problems. Schools with low teacher turnover and extraclass activities have more resilient. According to the study, poor students who study with colleagues from higher social classes are more likely to succeed. The smallest amount of missing students helps, but it is less significant. "A climate in which students feel safe and supported by teachers and peers is crucial to the success of those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged," says Avvisati.

No relationship was found between the number of computers per student and other non-human resources with the greatest resilience. Smaller classes also have no influence. And low socioeconomic girls are 9% less likely to be resilient than boys from the same school.

As Brazil has a low index, it was not possible to tabulate which factors most influence resilience in the country. However, in the Pisa questionnaires about the climate in the school, 40.3% of Brazilians said that "students do not begin to study as soon as they begin the class "and 38% who" do not listen to what the teacher speaks ". In the state and municipal networks the indexes are higher than in the particular one.

Emotion

"It's mess all the time, bad teachers, everything discourages," says Victor Gonzaga, 19, an example of resilience. He lives in Guarulhos and the parents do not have higher education. When he finished high school in the public network, he did two years of training with a scholarship. Last month, he surprised his entire family when he was approved in Medicine at USP (University of São Paulo), Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo) and Unicamp (State of Campinas). "My mother always encouraged me and let me not work in those years, but most of my friends were not so lucky."

Gabriel Zanata, 17, also from the public network, finds the system unfair. "Whoever is richer goes to private school. It seems like the rule is: whoever is downstairs has to stay downstairs whoever is upstairs continues upstairs." He spent the last year leaving home at 6 o'clock and returning only at midnight - did school and study together. "It was a thrill to see my name on the list (I passed the entrance examination). I will have an opportunity that my parents did not have." Gabriel will attend Engineering at USP. The father is an electrician and his mother is unemployed.

Equity

Hong Kong has the highest rate in the ranking, 53.1%. The relationship between resilience, quality and equity is clear. In countries with better educational outcomes and less social inequality, such as Finland and Canada, the figure is higher than 30%. Those at the bottom of the list do worse on assessments like Pisa and are less egalitarian, such as Algeria, Peru, and Lebanon.

"I'm worried that the school alone solves all this," says Pilar Lacerda, the former Secretary of Basic Education at the Ministry of Education and director of the SM Foundation. For her, the poor distribution of income and poverty greatly influence the lack of perspective so that the student can see in a better place. "The effort we have to make is five times more than in countries where basic needs are met."

Brazil is the 10th most unequal country in the world, according to the United Nations. "It is the less fortunate that they study in schools that do not have classes, that lack teacher", completes Mozart Neves Ramos, of the Ayrton Senna Institute. The disparity is also seen in the Enem (National High School Examination). According to data tabulated by the State, only 8% of the students with the thousand best grades in 2016 were from the public network. And 2.6% come from families with incomes less than 1 5 minimum wage.

For Ramos, the way to reduce inequality is to include in the curriculum the socio-emotional skills, among them, group work, problem solving and resilience. "You work situations that promote attitude change, self-esteem. You first do this to later correct flow and literacy."

The breakthrough was also tabulated over time. Between 2006 and 2015 (the Pisa is every three years), Brazil went from 0.6% of resilient to 2.1%, a high considered significant. Some of the biggest jumps were from Portugal (16.3% to 25.8%) and Russia (12.7% to 24.5%).

Methodology

Pisa has performance levels of 1 to 6. The knowledge of 3 is considered minimum for 15 year old students. And, therefore, they are the limit for poor young people to be considered resilient. That means they know how to deal with fractions, percentages, and decimals.

In the reading test, they identify and categorize various parts of a text. In Sciences, they are able to explain natural phenomena better known.