Curriculum and Assessment in Brazilian Early Childhood Education

Abstract

The Brazilian educational system has gone through major changes especially regarding early childhood education. Since 1996, day care centers (crèches) for 0–3-years-old children have been integrated into the educational system. In Brazil public ECE services can be offered at public administered centers or at private nonprofit centers supported by municipalities. The most important official documents about curriculum and assessment for ECE, produced from 1995 on, are summarized in this chapter. During all these years, several national official documents were prepared defining quality criteria for early childhood education systems and institutions. The picture that emerges from the few avaliable Brasilian studies shows that assessment of children at ECE institutions is not being sufficiently addressed by the national official orientations or by most local educational authorities. However, the panorama presented in this chapter indicates that issues related to ECE curriculum have been seriously addressed by official initiatives in the last two decades. Assessment of children and assessment of services are matters more recently debated, and a more detailed orientation has still to be defined. But many urgent problems must be addressed if Brazilians decide to shorten the distance between what is written and what is practiced in the daily life of ECE institutions. The adoption of more effective enforcing mechanisms to ensure that regulations are followed by the local systems and the individual services is very important to bridge the gap. Nevertheless it is also true that ECE present situation is very dynamic and diverse. Much has been done since a new Constitution was approved, 25 years ago.