Análise da eficiência dos gastos com ensino médio na rede estadual do Rio Grande do Norte entre os anos de 2017 e 2021

Abstract

Historically, education has proven to be the greatest tool for social and economic development in developed nations. The policy of investing in the educational system generates numerous positive impacts on the target population, such as job creation, income improvement, better quality of life, higher indicators of human development, increased life expectancy, among others. Developing countries like Brazil have been seeking ways to allocate public resources for education financing, including early childhood, primary, and higher education. This work aims to demonstrate the efficiency of government spending on high school education in the state network of Rio Grande do Norte over the past years, comparing it to the best and worst evaluated state according to IDEB, one of the main assessment indicators of Brazilian education, as reported by the Ministry of Education. Through this comparison, it aims to identify an efficient financial and pedagogical management model within the Brazilian reality. To measure the indicator of government expenditure efficiency, the concept of lower costs to achieve better results for the target audience was employed, indicating a more efficient investment. It was observed that states with lower rankings tend to have higher expenditures to achieve the same results as the best-ranked state with lower costs, thus demonstrating greater efficiency of the resources employed in those states. These findings suggest a possible model for financial and pedagogical planning in other states. This survey aims to contribute to better targeting of social policies in Brazilian states regarding basic education, as it is undeniably one of the main instruments for socio-economic development of the nation.