Armando A. Simões

Does Poverty Matter for Education?: the Contribution of Bolsa Família to the Educational Achievement of Economically Disadvantaged Children in Brazil Armando A. Simões

Does poverty matter for educational outcomes? If yes, does it mean that increasing family income to fight extreme poverty will benefit children?s education? What direct benefits conditional cash transfer programmes (CCT) can bring to the education of the poorest? These are some of the questions that motivated the study now brought to a wider audience in this book. Created in 2004, Bolsa Família is now, by far, the largest CCT programme in the world reaching 14 million families, 50 million people and costing around 10 billion dollars a year. By transferring monthly cash to poor families conditional on school attendance and health assistance for their children, Bolsa Família is expected to improve human capital amongst low income families and therefore avoid mass poverty in the long run. However, to achieve its long-term objective Bolsa Família should improve not only enrolment and attendance rates, but also learning outcomes and grade promotion amongst beneficiary children. Is this happening? This book offers to policymakers, researchers and the general public interested in education and poverty related issues some evidence on why fighting poverty is crucial for educational equity.