In Brazil's Amazon, teens go to 'Satellite High'
By Andrew Downie, CS Monitor, December 9, 2011
Manacapuru, Brazil--In a jungle-covered state as big as France, Germany, and Spain combined, life at the remotest schools is tough. Qualified teachers are hard to find and just getting kids to class along some of the 1,000 rivers can be an odyssey.
These sorts of difficulties are what spurred the Amazonas state government to launch its online distance-learning project. Now, the project's success is prompting the government to expand it.
"Our aim is to increase coverage to areas normal schools can't reach," says program director Jose Augusto de Melo Neto. "What we do is offer the structure for people to study every day."
The project was launched in 2007 in 300 classrooms--some of them four weeks by boat from the state capital. It has seen significant results.
Nationwide, 14 percent of high school students fail to complete their second year, according to Mr. Melo Neto, but for those taking the distance-learning course it is less than 3 percent. In Amazonas, 89 percent of students taking distance-learning courses graduate high school, compared with just 75 percent in Brazil as a whole.
One of the participants in the program is the Mario Silva D'Almeida school, located about two hours from the state capital, Manaus, and just a stone's throw from the mighty Amazon River.
Youngsters here in biology, math, and physics classes watch lessons on a big screen given by teachers in a Manaus studio and beamed to them via satellite. After explaining the basics--using everything from cartoons to music videos--the teachers set problems for the pupils, then go over them. A small number of students can ask questions via webcam or the chat function.
Like many Brazilian schools, the atmosphere at Mario Silva D'Almeida is informal. The system is prone to cutting out--sometimes because of torrential downpours or lightning strikes--and without a firm teacher on hand, students wander in and out of class or chat with friends, disturbing those who want to learn.
The teachers in the studio have to engage their audience, or else quickly lose them. And students say they are too embarrassed to ask questions because their mistakes can be seen by students across the whole state.
"Some people don't want to be on television," said Kezia Rodrigues Bastos, a student. "You make a mistake, everyone will see."
Melo Neto has ambitious aims to expand the program. The poor quality of Brazil's broadband connections, especially in the interior, impedes growth. But some 3 million Brazilians already take distance courses over TV, radio, and even mail, says the Brazilian Association of Distance Learning.
