Title not available in English

Abstract

Parallel to the development and consolidation of increasingly comprehensive and reliable databases, many educational indexes have become available to specialists, public policies developers and to the general public. However, the challenge has also become more complex due to the necessity that analysis and evaluation are put into context, taking into account information on different dimensions, and particularly, more disaggregated spatial units. It is in this context that this article proposes the construction of a synthetic index, which will reflect the quality and the development of the Brazilian educational system at the municipal level, and provide tools for the process of evaluation and decision of public educational policies. The data is obtained mainly from the yearly School Census (Censo Escolar), which has municipal representation, produced by the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais – INEP (National Institute for Educational Studies and Research). Built with four dimensions (participation, progression, infra-structure, and teaching staff), the proposed index synthesizes these characteristics in one indicator only, in such a way that it may provide a “warning” tool for planners from any field, regarding identification of problematic regions or problematic municipal areas. In this sense, the possibility of its reproduction for several moments and its mapping, make it even more interesting. The results produced so far are very encouraging. On the one hand, they are coherent with which is expected from what is already known from regional differences in Brazil; on the other hand, it has outlined a new and summarized form of taking advantage of the wealth of information produced by the School Census.