Full-time education: Assessment of the impact on learning of the Brazilian program Novo Mais Educação

Abstract

Although there is no consensus on the effectiveness of full-time education in learning, several countries in Latin America have developed programs to extend school hours aiming at a higher level of student performance. In Brazil, the federal government implemented two policies for increasing school hours: Mais Educação Program (PME), from 2008 to 2017, and Novo Mais Educação Program (PNME), in 2018 and 2019. Therefore, this paper assesses the impact of PNME on students’ learning and discusses the effectiveness of the PNME’s design compared to the previous policy PME. Official data from the Brazilian government were used and the methodology combined Difference-in-Differences with propensity score matching for evaluating math and language students test scores. For the initial years of Elementary School, the results show a positive impact on learning, but for the final years the results were ambiguous: a null effect on language students test scores and a negative impact on math tests scores. Yet these results proved to be more promising than those of its predecessor, the PME, which can be assigned to PNME’s design more focused on expanding language and math learning hours.