Education policy in Brazil has been given importance by the federal and local governments since 1995. At that time, the government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the Brazilian Ministry of Education began to pursue three areas of national education policy:
education finance equalization;
conditional cash transfers; and
education results measurement.
According to the World Bank, these national education policies have tracked with global best practice, and implementation has been sustained and effective in improving performance and outcomes of education in Brazil. Though Brazil has made significant strides in improving labor force skills, Brazil is below average with respect to learning levels, secondary completion rates, and student flow efficiency, when compared to OECD and other middle-income countries. In addition, non-attendance rates and drop-out rates have also been on the increase. Moreover, these factors are especially high in lower income areas where the quality of education largely remains below the expected levels. These have been the recent targets of education policy.