Teacher salary: Challenges for monitoring the valuation of Brazilian teachers in the context of Goal 17 of the National Education Plan

Abstract

This article aims to offer methodological strategies to verify and monitor the enforcement of goal 17 of the 2014/2021 National Education Plan (Brazilian Federal Law 13.005 from June 25, 2014), which determines that teachers from basic education public schools in Brazil must have average income equivalent to other professionals with similar education by 2020. We have used data from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) for the year 2013, which was the source recommended by the legislator. In the suggested calculation formula, we have indicated selection and treatment parameters for remuneration main intervening variables such as: occupation conditions, type of occupation (according to the Brazilian Classification of Occupations), education level, weekly working hours, and work sector. We have verified that the average salary of basic education teachers with graduate education level and 40 weekly working hours is R$ 2.613 and is equivalent to 61,2% of other professionals’ income (R$ 4.273). There is great inequality between the Brazilian states in relation to the goal, and the enforcement of goal 17 will demand fiscal efforts from the subnational governments and from the Union. The analysis has indicated that caution is needed in the conclusions about goal 17 from PNAD, since the sample survey is not designed to collect the characteristics and specificities of the teachers’ work.