Brazil’s National Education Forum Produces Report on the Regulation of the Private Sector in Education

The National Education Forum (FNE) of Brazil sent, this week, the final report of its Thematic Working Group (GTT) on the Regulation of Private Education to competent authorities. The document synthesizes the discussions, diagnoses, and proposals collectively developed within the GTT and presents recommendations to the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, Oversight Bodies, and the educational community.

In defense of public education, the document advocates for compliance with the 1988 Federal Constitution, particularly Article 209, which establishes the following conditions for the provision of private education: “I – compliance with the general norms of national education; II – authorization and quality evaluation by the Public Authority.”

VIEW THE DOCUMENT HERE

Among the report’s general recommendations to the Executive Branch, particularly regarding financing and applicable to all levels and modalities of education, are:

• - Establish minimum educational standards for private schools aligned with human rights obligations, particularly the Abidjan Principles.
• - Strictly monitor compliance with these standards.
• - Implement due diligence measures, such as human rights impact assessments (ex ante, ongoing, and ex post), before adopting measures that affect the right to education, including public financing for the private sector. These assessments should be public and involve all interested stakeholders.
• - Create and strengthen remedy mechanisms for violations committed by non-state actors.
• - Ensure transparent public information regarding the activities of the private sector.
• - Prevent undue influence by private institutions within the education system.
• - Establish an adequate regulatory framework before any transfer of (new) public resources to the private sector.
• - Create mechanisms to reverse the transfer of educational services to private initiative.
• - Require private institutions receiving public funds to comply with the same educational and labor standards as public schools, including the protection of trade union rights.
• - Progressively overcome dependence on the private sector through concrete transition plans toward the public system.
• - Prioritize the development of a quality public education system as the central axis for guaranteeing the right to education.
• - Simplify governance structures to make them more efficient (especially in Technical and Vocational Education and Training).
• - Identify needs and means to strengthen and enforce the regulatory environment for philanthropy, ensuring legitimacy, transparency, and accountability.
• - Promote dialogue and knowledge-sharing between the State and the private sector, expanding data collection and supporting research.
• - Develop a monitoring strategy for the philanthropic ecosystem based on needs, transparency, and accountability, including the transition from non-binding memoranda of understanding to legally binding accountability agreements.
• - Establish essential safeguards to prevent undue influence and create an adequate regulatory framework before transfers of funds.
• - More rigorously regulate private provision in education, especially in early childhood education.

The report also presents recommendations concerning Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) — mainly applicable to Early Childhood Education, on a transitional basis toward universal access with social quality in public education —; Distance Education (DE – Higher Education); Technology and Artificial Intelligence (applicable to all levels); and Technical and Vocational Education and Training.

The document was co-rapporteurized by Andressa Pellanda, General Coordinator of the Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education, alongside Paulo Muniz, representative of the Brazilian Association of Community Universities (Abruc). Coordination was carried out by Madalena Peixoto, representative of the National Confederation of Workers in Educational Establishments (Contee). Pellanda also organized and conducted the research and drafting of the report.

The points were addressed to the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, Oversight Bodies, and the educational community. See all recommendations at the end of the text.

Abidjan Principles

The Abidjan Principles, an international regulatory framework on private sector participation in education, were referenced within the document’s general principles. They were developed with contributions from the Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education in 2019 and represent an important advance by compiling and detailing existing legal obligations of States regarding the provision of education and, in particular, the role and limitations of private actors in education provision. They provide details on the meaning of international human rights law, based on other legal sources and existing official interpretations, seeking to balance private provision with the right to education as a public good.

The 2024 National Conference on Education (Conae), in its final text, had already adopted the Abidjan Principles as a benchmark for regulating private sector activities in education.

Analysis

The material also presents an analysis of the regulatory landscape in Brazil, as well as extensive and in-depth bibliographic research on regulation, international trends, and debates concerning private education and public-private partnerships in basic and higher education, building a study with analyses of the conceptions and forms through which regulatory measures for private education are implemented around the world.

“If until the 1990s the commodification of education occurred mainly in higher education and institutions were in the hands of national business sectors and family or community-based institutions, in recent decades we have witnessed the advance of publicly traded companies, increasingly concentrated through the formation of large conglomerates in higher and basic education, whether through the acquisition of institutions or through partnerships between their foundations and the public sector in the sale of different services, management, professional training, consultancy in the drafting of education plans, the sale of educational platforms, and public-private partnerships,” the document states in its introduction.

“This process intensified from 2016 onward through the implementation of curricular and structural reforms in education, with a major rise in private groups alongside the withdrawal of the State and the financial and political dismantling of democratic and public education, strengthening the agenda of self-regulation in private education and the expansion of political influence through various state instruments.”

The report is composed of contributions from organizations during the 10 hearings held in 2023 and from the content of the Free Conference on regulation held during the preparation of the National Education Conference (Conae).

Through Official Letter FNE No. 024/2026, the document was sent to the following bodies: Ministry of Education; National Education Council; National Council of State Education Secretaries (Consed); National Union of Municipal Education Directors (Undime); the Presidencies and Education Committees of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate; Ministry of Justice; Courts of Justice; National Council of Justice (CNJ); National Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (CNMP) – Education; Operational Support Centers for Education (CAOs Educação); COPEDUC/CNPG/GNDH; and member organizations of the FNE.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Below are the main recommendations organized based on the literature review and the hearings and debates carried out by the GTT.

For the Executive Branch

Recommendations for the Executive Branch focus on its role as regulator, financier, and direct provider of educational services.

General Regulation and Financing (applicable to all levels and modalities)

• - Establish minimum educational standards for private schools aligned with human rights obligations, particularly the Abidjan Principles.
• - Strictly monitor compliance with these standards.
• - Implement due diligence measures, such as human rights impact assessments (ex ante, ongoing, and ex post), before adopting measures that affect the right to education, including public financing for the private sector. These assessments should be public and involve all interested stakeholders.
• - Create and strengthen remedy mechanisms for violations committed by non-state actors.
• - Ensure transparent public information regarding the activities of the private sector.
• - Prevent undue influence by private institutions within the education system.
• - Establish an adequate regulatory framework before any transfer of (new) public resources to the private sector.
• - Create mechanisms to reverse the transfer of educational services to private initiative.
• - Require private institutions receiving public funds to comply with the same educational and labor standards as public schools, including the protection of trade union rights.
• - Progressively overcome dependence on the private sector through concrete transition plans toward the public system.
• - Prioritize the development of a quality public education system as the central axis for guaranteeing the right to education.
• - Simplify governance structures to make them more efficient (especially in Technical and Vocational Education and Training).
• - Identify needs and means to strengthen and enforce the regulatory environment for philanthropy, ensuring legitimacy, transparency, and accountability.
• - Promote dialogue and knowledge-sharing between the State and the private sector, expanding data collection and supporting research.
• - Develop a monitoring strategy for the philanthropic ecosystem based on needs, transparency, and accountability, including the transition from non-binding memoranda of understanding to legally binding accountability agreements.
• - Establish essential safeguards to prevent undue influence and create an adequate regulatory framework before transfers of funds.
• - More rigorously regulate private provision in education, especially in early childhood education.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) (mainly applicable to Early Childhood Education, on a transitional basis toward universal access with social quality in public education)

• - Incorporate educational planning criteria in the authorization of new private providers (considering the impact on public schools and diversity of provision).
• - Use procurement processes to select among private providers.
• - Regulate enrollment fees: prohibit additional charges and establish fee caps.
• - Use needs-based financing criteria, considering student characteristics and the social composition of schools (compensatory financing).
• - Centralize and control school choice and admission procedures (priority criteria, calendars, and common procedures).
• - Prohibit selective admissions by publicly subsidized private schools.
• - Establish priority access for vulnerable students (quotas or specific priority criteria).
• - Integrate private schools into the existing monitoring and evaluation framework for the public sector.
• - Create specific and stricter accountability systems for publicly subsidized private providers.
• - Harmonize teacher qualification requirements and licensing procedures between the public and private sectors.
• - Equalize salary scales and working conditions for teachers in public and publicly subsidized private schools.

Distance Education (DE) (Higher Education)

• - Revoke Decree No. 9.057/2017 and Ordinance No. 11/2017.
• - Reinstate CNE/CES Resolution 1/2016 as the central axis for regulation.
• - Insert robust guidelines for DE in the new National Education Plan (2024–2034), ensuring that expansion is linked to a democratic and socially oriented educational project.
• - Strengthen the quality of public and private DE provision, in accordance with Decree No. 12.456/2025.
• - Establish privileged dialogue with public universities for the construction of a new State policy for DE.
• - Implement the guidelines of Decree No. 12.456/2025, including: prohibiting fully distance-based programs in fields such as Medicine, Law, Health, and Teacher Education; defining minimum percentages of in-person and synchronous activities; valuing teaching staff; requiring in-person assessments with majority weight; and imposing new infrastructure requirements for DE centers.

Technology and Artificial Intelligence (applicable to all levels)

• - Endorse or develop general data protection regulations.
• - Adopt/review and finance comprehensive national AI strategies.
• - Consolidate and implement specific regulations on AI ethics.
• - Adapt or enforce existing copyright laws to regulate AI-generated content.
• - Develop specific regulatory frameworks for Generative AI.
• - Develop capacities and regulation for the appropriate use of Generative AI in education and research.
• - Reflect on the long-term implications of Generative AI for education and research.
• - Promote cross-sector coordination, risk classification, minimum age definitions for use, and protection of national data sovereignty.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training

• - Encourage cooperation among actors to serve the most marginalized groups, promoting cost-sharing models.
• - Focus on developing the non-state educational system in disadvantaged areas, with specific subnational policies and support based on local needs, without sacrificing general basic education for all students served.
• - The non-state educational system should only fill gaps in vocational and technical training in areas and territories where the state and public sector are unable to meet demand.

For the Legislative Branch

Recommendations for the Legislative Branch focus on the creation and improvement of the legal framework.

General Regulation and Financing (applicable to all levels and modalities)

• - Create a robust and specific regulatory framework for private sector activities in education, based on the Abidjan Principles.
• - Legislate to prevent undue influence by private institutions within the education system.
• - Establish by law the requirement for human rights impact assessments for public financing to the private sector.
• - Create laws requiring private institutions receiving public funds to comply with the same educational and labor standards as the public system.
• - Approve legislation guaranteeing equal working conditions and salaries for teachers in public and publicly subsidized private systems.
• - Legislate to prohibit selective admissions in private schools receiving public resources.
• - Create laws establishing centralized admissions systems and priority criteria for students in vulnerable situations.
• - Approve the legal framework for the creation of a robust public institute linked to the Ministry of Education for the regulation and supervision of private higher education (such as INSAES), with social participation.
• - Strengthen SERES on a transitional basis until the establishment of INSAES.

Distance Education (DE) (Higher Education)

• - Strengthen the legal framework for DE, ensuring the effective revocation of previous flexibilizations and the establishment of quality standards, such as student-teacher ratios, material quality, and teacher training.
• - Insert specific and robust guidelines for DE into the new National Education Plan (PNE 2024–2034).
• - Require that the principle of valuing the teaching profession, in all its specifications included in the new framework, be fully implemented by institutions.

Technology and Generative Artificial Intelligence

• - Draft and approve specific legal frameworks regulating Generative Artificial Intelligence in education, including ethics, data protection, and copyright aspects.
• - Prohibit the replacement of teachers by AI.

For the Judiciary and Oversight Bodies

Recommendations for the Judiciary and Oversight Bodies concern their role in interpreting and enforcing the law and guaranteeing constitutional rights.

General Regulation and Accountability

• - Hold the State accountable for the actions of private actors in cases of “attribution” (when private entities exercise governmental functions) and “state complicity” (when the State encourages or facilitates violations by private entities).
• - Ensure the effectiveness of remedy mechanisms for human rights violations committed by non-state actors in education.
• - Ensure compliance of educational policies and private sector activities with the Federal Constitution and international human rights treaties, especially the right to free public education.
• - Rule based on the principle of protecting the right to education as a public good, curbing practices that promote socioeconomic segregation or the commodification of education.

Financing

• - Oversee the constitutionality of transfers of public resources to the private sector, within the transitional framework previously described toward the universalization of public systems at all levels, requiring safeguards and proof that there is no harm to the public system.

For the Educational Community

This category includes recommendations for civil society, schools, universities, teachers, students, families, and their representative organizations.

Civil Society, Families, and Social Movements

• - Act in promoting, monitoring, and advocating for effective regulation of the private sector, using tools such as the Abidjan Principles.
• - Demand transparency and accountability from the State and private institutions, especially regarding the use of public resources and service quality.
• - Actively participate in spaces of social oversight, such as education councils and forums, as well as legislative bodies, to monitor policy implementation and private sector regulation.
• - Mobilize against the commodification of education and in defense of strengthening the public system.
• - Report human rights violations committed by public and private actors using available remedy mechanisms.

Educational Institutions, Teachers, and Education Professionals (especially supervisors, counselors, and educational inspectors)

• - Defend democratic management and pedagogical autonomy against standardization imposed by private education systems or market logics.
• - Demand and participate in continuing education for the ethical and pedagogical use of technologies and Generative AI.
• - Strengthen trade unions and professional organizations to fight for equal rights and working conditions between the public and private sectors.
• - Promote a culture of participation and defense of education as a right within schools and universities.
• - In private institutions, respect the right to education by refraining from actions that violate it, such as discriminatory student selection and abusive fees.

Individual Users (Education Professionals, Researchers, and Students) Regarding Technology

• - Become aware of the terms of use of Generative AI applications.
• - Ethically employ Generative AI applications.
• - Monitor and report illegal uses of these technologies.

(Photo: Courtesy of SEED-AP)