Education as public investment: Political necessity, economic debate, and institutional propositions

Abstract

This paper reconstitutes, presents, and discusses an alternative proposal for financing public education in Brazil: its classification as public investment through the legal conversion of all expenditure on maintenance and development of education, so that it can be financed, if necessary, through credit operations, for the purposes of the “golden rule”, referred to in art. 167, III of the 1988 Federal Constitution. It adopts a multidisciplinary perspective by exploring the interfaces among the historical formation of educational planning and financing policies in the country, the economic debate on development and human capital in the welfare state, and the analysis of the legal-institutional design of spending on education, as they are framed by financial law. In the end, propositions are made to the debate on the need to restructure the assumptions that currently drive possibilities and limits of sustained financing of educational policies in the country and, consequently, of realizing the fundamental right to quality education for all.