Brazil Needs 16 Years to Close Racial High School Completion Gap, Study Finds

Overview

• An analysis by Todos Pela Educação using 2015–2025 IBGE data finds 69.5% of Black, Brown and Indigenous youth complete high school by 19, compared with 81.7% of white and Asian peers.
• At the current pace, the racial gap would close in about 16 years, while the income gap would take roughly two decades given 60.4% completion among the poorest versus 94.2% among the richest.
• One in four Brazilians up to age 19 has not finished basic education, with about 400,000 leaving school because they needed to work or lost interest.
• The Southeast shows the highest completion rate at 79.6%, and the North the lowest at 69.1%, reflecting persistent regional disparities.
• Boys complete high school at lower rates than girls (70.2% versus 78.5%), with higher dropout due to work or disengagement, while girls face barriers such as domestic workloads and early motherhood.