Rural School Transportation in Brazil as an Essential Factor For The Education Policy

Willer Luciano Carvalho, Yaeko Yamashita, Joaquim Jose Quilherme de Aragao

The Brazilian Constitution guarantees the right to education for all children and adolescents, may they reside in rural or in urban areas.  In order to ensure this right, the federal, state and municipal governments are equally obliged to provide the resources needed to ensure the school access and permanence of the pupils. The provision of free and efficient school transportation for all students in the public school network stands out among such resource needs. Particularly, the Brazilian educational system has rendered children from rural areas increasingly dependent upon public transportation, as some of the policies implemented over the years (e.g. concentration of the school services in the core city of the municipality) have augmented the distances for the rural children.  In some cases, they must commute for over four hours between their homes and schools. In addition, public authorities have not always been able to guarantee safe, adequate transportation that responds to the needs of the children living under the particular conditions of the rural areas. Faced with this scenario, this study portrays the conditions of the physical access to the school imposed upon the children living in rural areas, which jeopardize their social inclusion process that should be assured by the education system.