The insertion in the labor market improves, especially if it occurs during formal study, reading levels between young people (in the range of 15 to 29 years), according to the Study Indicator of Functional Literacy (Inaf). While 65% of young people who study and work are properly literate, this level drops to 36% among those who do not study or work and is limited to 43% among those who only study and 45% among those who only work.
According to the survey, only one third of the population over 15 years is considered with consolidated literacy in the country – 35% of Brazilians in this age group are able to locate non -explicit information and interpret texts, and deal with complex numbers. Another 36% have elementary literacy and can handle medium extension texts and basic operations at the thousands, while 29% of the population are considered functional illiterate. The research also reveals that the pace of improvement of these rates is slow and stable in recent years, which indicates the need to change public policies to include vulnerable populations, especially the poorest, black and indigenous.
“We realize that face -to -face work is also an opportunity for learning. It is at work that you live with someone who knows more than you, who has a process, a method, a way. There is a colleague who helps you, someone you help and know more than him, this are exercises that help you develop skills of various kinds, including those we measure, that are of written and mathematics, the work, the non -presiders, the non -presiders, the work Work, because many people could not continue their occupations, also limited this possibility of development, ”says Ana Lima, coordinator of the study.
Although the methodology used cannot establish a cause and effect relationship that determines whether employability is related to proficiency or effectively improves when the young man works, Lima considers that young people benefit from both situations: those who quickly dominate consolidated reading capacity have greater insertion in the labor market, but also those who do not have it and go to labor environments tend to improve their skills. What worries, ponders, is that this advance is not yet necessary for an increasingly demanding job market in terms of training and use of complex techniques and equipment.
“The schooling of these people is much larger than the previous generation, and this young man is better qualified than in the past decade, in the last generation. Still, he arrives with many limitations to work in an increasingly sophisticated job market, which wants more technology and requires less Brazilian work. This breakthrough is insufficient to meet the qualification that the employer expects and to bring the realization that the worker expects, because he also invested in his studies. sides, ”says Ana Lima. For this group, she considers that it is up to the public power to foster continuing education and concentrated in the relationship with the world of work, valuing employers and educational networks with flexible hours.
Ana also considers that the restructuring of youth and adult education (EJA), quite impacted in the last decade, is an important way, but with a different profile from that of the turn of the century. In the period, the appreciation of workers of older age and historical exclusion had a more determining role, which we did not realize in the current profile of the students. The most recent EJA has increasingly the role of reconciling work and the resumption of study for young people who needed to stop at some point. For the researcher, it is natural for this path to include vocational training and partnership with companies and workers’ representation entities, which can mean the difference to the group, of more complex inclusion.
Vulnerabilities
The study highlights the importance of policies to combat inequalities, especially when the analysis considers gender and race criteria. Among young women with functional illiteracy, 42% do not study or work, while men in the same condition represent 17% of the sample. For men who are functional illiterate, 56% only worked, which the study attributes to the responsibility and weight of family care as a factor of perpetuation of difficulties.
In the case of young blacks, there is a higher incidence of functional illiteracy (17%) and lower presence in the consolidated literacy group (40%), compared to young white, with rates of 13%and 53%, respectively. The study did not specify the difference between women and men combined with the race factor, but it is common in studies of inequality the perception that the situation gets worse when there is effective research on the impact on black women.
