ABSTRACT

The article analyzes whether there is an association between inequality in the infrastructure of municipal schools (EMEIs) in Belo Horizonte regarding i) location, ii) the type of management and iii) the correction to information provided to the School Census 2019. We also compared the data from the School Census with economic indicators and on-site visits. We found that the territorial distribution of EMEIs and the type of administration affect the degree of school infrastructure adequacy. However, these variables showed few explanatory powers to the inequalities seen in the School Census. On the other hand, we identified discrepancies between the data filled out by the educational units and the information verified in local visits.

Keywords
Early Childhood Education; Conditions of Educational Offer; School Infrastructure; Inequalities of Educational Opportunities; Public Policy Instruments

RESUMO

O artigo analisa se há associação da desigualdade na infraestrutura das escolas municipais de educação infantil (EMEIs) de Belo Horizonte quanto i) à localização, ii) ao tipo de gestão e iii) à correção de informação censitária prestada, em relação ao ano de 2019. Os dados do Censo Escolar foram cotejados com indicadores econômicos e visitas in loco. Verificou-se que a distribuição territorial das EMEIs e o tipo de administração têm repercussões no grau de adequação de infraestrutura das escolas. Porém, essas variáveis apresentaram pouco poder explicativo para as desigualdades encontradas no Censo Escolar daquele ano. Em contrapartida, identificou-se discrepâncias entre os dados preenchidos pelas unidades educacionais e as informações verificadas em visitas locais.

Palavras-chave
Educação Infantil; Condições de Oferta Educacional; Infraestrutura de Escolas; Desigualdades de Oportunidades Educacionais; Instrumentos de Políticas Públicas

Introduction

School infrastructure has been a theme of studies in the education field, which gained prominence in the discussions about school effectiveness in the 1970s and 1980s (Rutter; Maughan; Mortimore; Ouston, 1979RUTTER, Michel; MAUGHAN, Barbara; MORTIMORE, Peter; OUSTON, Janet. Fifteen Thousand Hours: secondary schools and their effects on children. London: Open Books, 1979.; Madaus; Airasian; Kellaghan, 1980MADAUS, George; AIRASIAN, Peter; KELLAGHAN, Thomas. School Effectiveness: a reassessement of the evidence. Nova York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980.; Mortimore; Sammons; Stoll; Lewis, 1988MORTIMORE, Peter; SAMMONS, Pam; STOLL, Louise; LEWIS, David; ECOB, Russel. School Matters: the junior years. London: Paul Chapman Educational Publishing, 1998.). The aim was to evaluate to what extent the characteristics of the school environment, its spaces, and equipment, among other factors, influenced the educational results (Brooke; Soares, 2008BROOKE, Nigel; SOARES, José. Pesquisa em Eficácia Escolar: origem e trajetórias. Belo Horizonte: EdUFMG, 2008.). More recently, several studies in Brazil with different forms to collect data and analytical methodologies (Alves; Xavier; Paula, 2019) have ensured a space for this discussion in the country’s education research agenda. Some examples are the studies on the relationship between school infrastructure and learning results (Alves; Franco, 2008ALVES, Maria Teresa; FRANCO, Creso. A Pesquisa em Eficácia Escolar no Brasil: evidências sobre o efeito das escolas e fatores associados à eficácia escolar. In: BROOKE, Nigel; SOARES, José F. (Ed.). Pesquisa em Eficácia Escolar: origem e trajetórias. Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2008. P. 482-500.); school architecture throughout education history (Faria Filho, 2000FARIA FILHO, Luciano. Dos Pardieiros aos Palácios: cultura escolar e urbana em Belo Horizonte na Primeira República. Passo Fundo: UPF, 2000.; Dórea, 2013DÓREA, Célia. A Arquitetura Escolar como Objeto de Pesquisa em História da Educação. Educar em Revista, Curitiba, n. 49, p. 161-181, jul.-set. 2013. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-40602013000300010. Acesso em: 21 jan. 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-4060201300... ); sector public policies (Duarte; Gomes; Gotelipe, 2019DUARTE, Marisa; BRAGA, Daniel. Desigualdades Educacionais como Obstáculo à Justiça Social: análise da infraestrutura de escolas de Minas Gerais. Espaço Pedagógico, v. 26, n. 3, p. 795-814, 4 set. 2019. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.5335/rep.v26i3.9127. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
https://doi.org/10.5335/rep.v26i3.9127... ); and effects of education funding on infrastructure (Duarte; Braga, 2019DUARTE, Marisa; BRAGA, Daniel. Desigualdades Educacionais como Obstáculo à Justiça Social: análise da infraestrutura de escolas de Minas Gerais. Espaço Pedagógico, v. 26, n. 3, p. 795-814, 4 set. 2019. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.5335/rep.v26i3.9127. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
https://doi.org/10.5335/rep.v26i3.9127... ; Schneider; Frantz; Alves, 2020).

Added to this education research agenda are international and national discussions about educational public policies regarding the importance of good offer conditions for developing quality and equitable education work. For instance, Goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development¹ 1 Approved in 2015 during the World Education Forum, which took place in Incheon, South Korea. (NU, 2015NU. Nações Unidades. Transformando Nosso Mundo: a agenda 2030 para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável. Traduzido pelo Centro de Informação das Nações Unidas para o Brasil (UNIC Rio). Brasília: Casa ONU Brasil, 2015. Disponível em: https://brasil.un.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/agenda2030-pt-br.pdf. Acesso em: 17 abr. 2021.
https://brasil.un.org/sites/default/file... ), to which Brazil is a signatory, refers to education and expresses the countries’ commitment to building and improving schools’ physical facilities. Brazilian Plano Nacional da Educação – PNE [National Education Plan] (Brasil, 2014BRASIL. Lei nº 13.005, de 25 de junho de 2014. Aprova o Plano Nacional de Educação - PNE e dá outras providências. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, 26 jun. 2014. Seção 1. P. 1. Disponível em: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2011-2014/2014/lei/l13005.htm. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_at... ) encompasses the issue of improving infrastructure among its strategies to ensure teaching and learning conditions for all teachers and students. Strategy 3 of Target 6, for example, envisions the establishment of a collaboration regime to broaden and restructure public policies by building educational spaces, such as sports courts, laboratories, and libraries, among others (Brasil, 2014BRASIL. Lei nº 13.005, de 25 de junho de 2014. Aprova o Plano Nacional de Educação - PNE e dá outras providências. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, 26 jun. 2014. Seção 1. P. 1. Disponível em: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2011-2014/2014/lei/l13005.htm. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_at... ).

As the central educational public policies in the 1990s and early 2000s were focused on elementary and middle school (Cury, 2002CURY, Carlos. A Educação Básica no Brasil. Educação & Sociedade, Campinas, v. 23, n. 80, p. 168-200, set. 2002. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302002008000010. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-7330200200... ), there is a significant number of studies about school infrastructure regarding the intermediate phase of K-12 education (Sá; Werle, 2017SÁ, Jauri dos Santos; WERLE, Flávia Obino Corrêa. Infraestrutura Escolar e Espaço Físico em Educação: o estado da arte. Cadernos de Pesquisa, São Paulo, FCC, v. 47, n. 164, p. 386-413, 2017. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1590/198053143735. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1590/198053143735... ). More recently, with obligatory enrollment in preschool and high school (Brasil, 2009BRASIL. Emenda Constitucional n° 59, de 11 de novembro de 2009. Acrescenta § 3º ao art. 76 do Ato das Disposições Constitucionais Transitórias para reduzir, anualmente, a partir do exercício de 2009, o percentual da Desvinculação das Receitas da União incidente sobre os recursos destinados à manutenção e desenvolvimento do ensino de que trata o art. 212 da Constituição Federal […]. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, ano 146, n. 216, 12 nov. 2009. Disponível em: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/emendas/emc/emc59.htm. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/con... , art. 1°), other works analyzed the schools’ infrastructure from the specificities of these phases (Azevedo, 2012AZEVEDO, Giselle. Sobre o Papel da Arquitetura Escolar no Cotidiano da Educação: análise das interações pessoa-ambiente para a transformação qualitativa do lugar pedagógico. In: ENCONTRO NACIONAL DE TECNOLOGIA DO AMBIENTE CONSTRUÍDO, 14., 2012, Juiz de Fora. Anais […]. Porto Alegre: ANTAC, 2012.; Rodopoulos, 2017RODOPOULOS, Adriana. Infraestrutura Escolar e Formação: uma análise acerca da consciência cindida dos estudantes do ensino médio. 2017. 119 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação: História, Política e Sociedade) – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação: História, Política e Sociedade, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2017.; Carnaval, 2020CARNAVAL, Marilya. Infraestrutura e Desempenho do Ensino Médio, em Escolas Públicas da Capital Paulista da Rede Estadual. 2020. 133 f. Tese (Doutorado) – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação: história, política e sociedade, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2020.).

This research refers to the infrastructure of childhood education schools, specifically the inequalities in construction conditions, spaces, and equipment in nurseries and preschools. We point out that the use of the term inequalities is based on the sociological concept of education inequality, which seeks to highlight that, more than differences, the conditions signalize a hierarchy that can directly reverberate in the teaching and learning processes (Dubet, 2008DUBET, François. O que é uma Escola Justa? A escola das oportunidades. São Paulo: Cortez, 2008.; Nogueira, Catani; 1998NOGUEIRA, Maria Alice; CATANI, Afrânio M. Escritos de Educação. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1998.).

Starting in the 1950s, in a post-war context, the debate on educational inequalities gained steam, considering that, as stated by Nogueira (1995)NOGUEIRA, Maria Alice. A sociologia da Educação do Imediato Pós-Guerra: orientações teórico-metodológicas. Cadernos de Ciências Sociais, Belo Horizonte, v. 4, n.6, p. 43-66, 1995., the governments of various countries, especially European ones, committed themselves to promoting school access to broader population groups, thus believing that they would build more equalitarian and fair societies. Therefore, the investment in education to increase economic competitiveness, a concept corroborated by Eric Hanushek and Ludger Wößmann (2020)HANUSHEK, Eric; WÖßMANN, Ludger. Education, Knowledge Capital, and Economic Growth. In: BRADLEY, Steve; GREEN, Colin (Org.). The Economics of Education: a comprehensive overview. London, San Diego, Cambridge, Oxford: Academic Press, 2020. P. 171-182., Stanford University researchers, when highlighting that, in a way, the differences between the countries’ economic growth rates can be explained by differences in the quality of education offered to their people. Thus, knowledge and learning opportunities count for economic growth, not only school time. Hence, when creating public policies, paying attention to school quality is essential, which encompasses the observation and analysis of structures.

Nowadays, we clearly perceive the progress in the massification of K-12 education and the broadening of childhood education. However, some challenges related to the structural and pedagogical challenges remain. Hence, the need to question the legal instances goes beyond reproducing and legitimizing school inequalities (Bourdieu, 2011aBOURDIEU, Pierre. A Escola Conservadora: as desigualdades frente à escola e à cultura. In: NOGUEIRA, Maria Alice; CATANI, Afrânio Mendes (Org.). Pierre Bourdieu: escritos de educação. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2011a.; 2011bBOURDIEU, Pierre. Os Excluídos do Interior. In: NOGUEIRA, Maria Alice; CATANI, Afrânio Mendes (Org.). Pierre Bourdieu: escritos de educação. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2011b.), in order to foment fairer and more democratic schools and educational processes.

Infrastructure is one of these elements. It is defined as a set of facilities, equipment, furniture, materials, etc., and the base to create and organize learning environments seeking to attend children’s care, education, and development in nurseries and preschools (Garcia, Garrido, Marconi; 2017GARCIA, Paulo Sergio; GARRIDO, Érica Loureiro; MARCONI, Juliana. Um Estudo sobre a Infraestrutura da Educação Infantil da Região do Grande ABC Paulista. HOLOS, Natal, ANO 33, v. 1, p. 139-154, 2017. Disponível em: https://www2.ifrn.edu.br/ojs/index.php/HOLOS/article/view/5140. Acesso em: 10 ago. 2022.
https://www2.ifrn.edu.br/ojs/index.php/H... ; Silva, 2023SILVA, Franceline Rodrigues. Infraestrutura Escolar da Educação Infantil em Minas Gerais: uma análise das condições de oferta. 2023. 241 f. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) – Curso de Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação: Conhecimento e Inclusão Social, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2023. (No prelo).).

The spatial context of this text is the city of Belo Horizonte. The data refer to 2019, collected in the Censo Escolar [School Census] of the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira – INEP (INEP, 2020INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].). Among other aspects, we opted for the 2019 census considering the challenges and data inconsistencies of the 2020 and 2021 censuses, which were caused and imposed by the pandemic. Besides the census data, we conducted 117 visits to municipal schools of childhood education (EMEIs) out of the 143 schools. This work unfolds from a recently published study (Silva; Braga; Vieira, 2021SILVA, Franceline; BRAGA, Daniel; VIEIRA, Lívia Maria. Infraestrutura das Creches e Pré-Escolas em Belo Horizonte: condições de oferta e distribuição territorial. Educação, Santa Maria, UFSM, v. 46, n. 1, p. 1-28, 2021. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufsm.br/reveducacao/article/view/42721. Acesso em: 23 dez. 2022.
https://periodicos.ufsm.br/reveducacao/a... ), which investigated the infrastructure of public and private childhood education institutions from Belo Horizonte.

On that occasion, the researchers identified in the Censo Escolar 2018 that, generally, the educational institutions for childhood education in the city presented inequalities in the adequacy levels of spaces and facilities (Silva; Braga; Vieira, 2021SILVA, Franceline; BRAGA, Daniel; VIEIRA, Lívia Maria. Infraestrutura das Creches e Pré-Escolas em Belo Horizonte: condições de oferta e distribuição territorial. Educação, Santa Maria, UFSM, v. 46, n. 1, p. 1-28, 2021. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufsm.br/reveducacao/article/view/42721. Acesso em: 23 dez. 2022.
https://periodicos.ufsm.br/reveducacao/a... ). Regarding the public services of water and electric supply, sewage, and basic sanitation, the childhood education schools reached satisfactory levels of adequacy. A considerable part of public and private preschool institutions and an even more significant number of nurseries continue to work in religious spaces, teachers’ houses, warehouses, and other places that were not school buildings. Besides this, many had no playgrounds, green areas, and restrooms adapted to children.

The hypothesis in that work was that, despite the general inadequacies of the institutions, the EMEIs, considered a bold and model project in Minas Gerais and the country to attend the first phase of K-12 education (Brasil, 2006BRASIL. Ministério da Educação. Secretaria de Educação Básica. Parâmetros Básicos de Infraestrutura para Instituições de Educação Infantil. Brasília: MEC, SEB, 2006. Disponível em: http://portal.mec.gov.br/seb/arquivos/pdf/Educinf/miolo_infraestr.pdf. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
http://portal.mec.gov.br/seb/arquivos/pd... ), would tend to present a better infrastructure to attend children from 0 to 5 years old. When trying to encompass, in its design, children’s development needs in early childhood, EMEIs would be, as a whole, more equipped than private ones. However, the Censo Escolar data of that year showed that the EMEIs also presented meaningful inadequacies in spaces and facilities. Besides this, within the universe of municipal public schools, the study perceived a high variation degree among institutions, showing the inequalities in the infrastructure conditions of these schools (Silva; Braga; Vieira, 2021SILVA, Franceline; BRAGA, Daniel; VIEIRA, Lívia Maria. Infraestrutura das Creches e Pré-Escolas em Belo Horizonte: condições de oferta e distribuição territorial. Educação, Santa Maria, UFSM, v. 46, n. 1, p. 1-28, 2021. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufsm.br/reveducacao/article/view/42721. Acesso em: 23 dez. 2022.
https://periodicos.ufsm.br/reveducacao/a... ).

Therefore, this work seeks to answer if it is possible to associate the infrastructure inequalities among the EMEIs in Belo Horizonte (dependent variable) and explanatory factors (independent variables). Considering the literature on education inequalities, two explanatory factors were considered: the territory (Érnica; Rodrigues, 2020ÉRNICA, Mauricio; RODRIGUES, Erica. Desigualdades Educacionais em Metrópoles: território, nível socioeconômico, raça e gênero. Educação & Sociedade, Campinas, v. 41, e228514, 2020. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1590/es.228514. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1590/es.228514... ) and public-private partnership (Adrião, 2018ADRIÃO, Theresa. Dimensões e Formas da Privatização da Educação no Brasil: caracterização a partir de mapeamento de produções nacionais e internacionais. Currículo sem Fronteiras, v. 18, n. 1, p. 8-28, jan.-abr. 2018. Disponível em: https://www.curriculosemfronteiras.org/vol18iss1articles/adriao.pdf. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
https://www.curriculosemfronteiras.org/v... ; Fernandez; Rosa; Carraro; Shikida; Carvalho, 2019FERNANDEZ, Rodrigo; ROSA, Taciane; CARRARO, André; SHIKIDA, Claudio; CARVALHO, Áurea. Parcerias Público-Privadas: uma alternativa para a educação brasileira. Planejamento e Políticas Públicas, Rio de Janeiro, IPEA, n. 52, 2019. Disponível em: https://www.ipea.gov.br/ppp/index.php/PPP/article/view/885. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
https://www.ipea.gov.br/ppp/index.php/PP... ). A third explanatory hypothesis referred to the limitations of the Censo Escolar [School Census] characteristics (Alves; Xavier; Paula, 2019ALVES, Maria Teresa; XAVIER, Flavia; PAULA, Túlio. Modelo Conceitual para Avaliação da Infraestrutura Escolar no Ensino Fundamental. Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedagógicos, Brasília, v. 100, n. 255, p. 297-330, ago. 2019. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.24109/2176-6681.rbep.100i255.3866. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
https://doi.org/10.24109/2176-6681.rbep.... ). We considered the filling of this census tool as a possible explanatory factor for inequalities.

Therefore, the general objective of this work is to analyze which aspects matter for the inequality of educational opportunities for children between 0 to 5 years old, considering the infrastructure in the same public education system presented in the census data. As specific objectives, the work intends to 1) evaluate EMEIs infrastructure adequacy regarding public services, spaces, facilities, and equipment in the 2019 Censo Escolar; 2) spatially map the infrastructure adequacy levels in the territory of Belo Horizonte; 3) analyze the infrastructure aspects of schools build by public-private partnerships; and 4) compare the information of Censo Escolar with in loco visits in the EMEIs.

The EMEIs experience in Belo Horizonte

The Rede Municipal de Educação de Belo Horizonte (RME-BH- Belo Horizonte Municipal Education System) is established by public educational institutions that attend childhood education (children from 0 to 5 years old), elementary and middle education (children and teenagers from 6 to 14 years old), and Young and Adult Education (encompassing those that do not participate on it or those who did not finish any schooling phase in the predicted age). In 2021, the RME-BH had 321 of their own schools, out of them 143 EMEIs, 176 elementary/middle municipal schools (EMEFs). Among the latter, 84 also attended some segments of childhood education. Besides this, 216 private institutions were affiliated with the Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte (PBH- Belo Horizonte City Hall). When added, the offer of childhood education in the public sector amounted to 445 institutions, besides the 506 non-affiliated private institutions. These institutions are spatially well-distributed in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais state. Each of the nine regions, presented in Figure 1, Barreiro, Northeast, West, Pampulha, Northwest, North, Center-South, East, and Venda Nova, has an education management office located in the territory aiming to better articulate the regional demands with the Municipal Education Secretary.

Bibliographic studies indicate that the first school to attend the public from 4 to 6 years old in Belo Horizonte was Escola Estadual Delfim Moreira (Terra, 2008TERRA, Cynthia Alessandra. A Implementação do Atendimento Público de Educação Infantil em Belo Horizonte: processo e perspectivas. 2008. 282 f. Dissertação (Mestrado) – Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2008.; Rocha, 2009ROCHA, Maria da Consolação. Políticas de Valorização do Magistério: remuneração, plano de carreira, condições de trabalho – uma análise da experiência de Belo Horizonte. 2009. 341 f. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) – Faculdade de Educação, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2009.), which, as one of the unfoldings of LDB, Lei nº 9.394/96, was municipalized, becoming one of the first municipal schools of childhood education but the municipal offer started in 1957 with the opening of Jardim Municipal da Renascença (Melo, 2016MELO, Ana Cláudia Figueiredo Brasil Silva (Org). Proposições Curriculares para a Educação Infantil: fundamentos. Belo Horizonte: SMED, 2016. (Desafios da Formação, 1). Disponível em: https://prefeitura.pbh.gov.br/sites/default/files/estrutura-de-governo/educacao/2021/proposicoes-curriculares-para-educacao-infantil-vol-1-fundamentos.pdf. Acesso em: 18 abr. 2023.
https://prefeitura.pbh.gov.br/sites/defa... ). Between 1957 and 2003 – when PBH started to implement the Unidades Municipais de Educação Infantil (UMEI- Municipal Units of Childhood Education), Law nº 8.679, from November 11 –, children’s education in the RME-BH encompassed the ages from 4 to 6 years old, mostly in partial hours in the municipal school of childhood education and municipal elementary/middle schools with some childhood education classes (Silva, 2017SILVA, Franceline Rodrigues. Educação Infantil não é Brincadeira: valorização da remuneração e carreira do professor para a Educação Infantil na Rede Municipal de Educação de Belo Horizonte (RME/BH) no contexto do financiamento educacional (2004-2015). 2017. 247 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação e Formação Humana, Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2017.).

Besides the public offer, other initiatives took place in the late 1970s, with the emergence of community nurseries in the industrial area of Belo Horizonte (Terra, 2008TERRA, Cynthia Alessandra. A Implementação do Atendimento Público de Educação Infantil em Belo Horizonte: processo e perspectivas. 2008. 282 f. Dissertação (Mestrado) – Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2008.), motivated by working mothers and the creation of the Movimento de Luta Pró-Creche (MLPC- Movement for Nurseries), which, at first, aimed to raise financial resources to maintain the nurseries (Silva, 2017SILVA, Franceline Rodrigues. Educação Infantil não é Brincadeira: valorização da remuneração e carreira do professor para a Educação Infantil na Rede Municipal de Educação de Belo Horizonte (RME/BH) no contexto do financiamento educacional (2004-2015). 2017. 247 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação e Formação Humana, Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2017.). In 1983, Belo Horizonte City Hall signed the first agreement with the nurseries, intermediated by the Health Secretary (Veiga, 2005VEIGA, Márcia Moreira. Creches e Políticas Sociais. São Paulo: Annablume, 2005. ). After that, the agreement policy was consolidated in the city. The agreement management was transferred from the Municipal Secretary of Social Assistance to the Municipal Secretary of Education of Belo Horizonte (SMED/BH) in 2002 (Terra, 2008TERRA, Cynthia Alessandra. A Implementação do Atendimento Público de Educação Infantil em Belo Horizonte: processo e perspectivas. 2008. 282 f. Dissertação (Mestrado) – Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2008.).

Since 2003, childhood education in Belo Horizonte started to be offered in different types of institutions: public ones, such as UMEIs; municipal preschools, former municipal nurseries; elementary schools with childhood education classes; and private ones, with and without public agreements. Throughout the following two decades, the city increased the number of childhood education institutions, which started to have pedagogical and financial autonomy when emancipating and being recognized as schools – Law n° 11.132 (Belo Horizonte, 2018BELO HORIZONTE. Lei nº 11.132, de 18 de setembro de 2018. Estabelece a autonomia das Unidades Municipais de Educação Infantil - Umeis, transformando-as em Escolas Municipais de Educação Infantil - Emeis, cria o cargo comissionado de Diretor de Emei, as funções públicas comissionadas de Vice-Diretor de Emei e de Coordenador Pedagógico Geral, o cargo comissionado de Secretário Escolar, os cargos públicos de Bibliotecário Escolar e de Assistente Administrativo Educacional e dá outras providências. Diário Oficial do Município, Belo Horizonte, 18 set. 2018.). At first glance, the change of names from Unidades de Educação Infantil [Unities of Childhood Education] to Escolas de Educação Infantil [Childhood Education Schools] can seem simply bureaucratic, but, in fact, the law implied a significant change in the organizational structure and school management. Before, they were managed by the principal of the headquarters school, who often ignored the specificities and needs of childhood education, among which the structural needs and issues, as in the Resolution CME/BH Nº 001/2015 (Belo Horizonte. 2015BELO HORIZONTE. Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Resolução CME/BH n° 001/2015. Fixa normas para o funcionamento de instituições de educação infantil do Sistema Municipal de Ensino de Belo Horizonte (SME/BH). Diário Oficial do Município, Belo Horizonte, ano 26, n. 4763, 14 mar. 2015. Disponível em: http://portal6.pbh.gov.br/dom/iniciaEdicao.do?method=DetalheArtigo&pk=1138760. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
http://portal6.pbh.gov.br/dom/iniciaEdic... ).

Materials and Methods

The analysis of EMEIs infrastructure in Belo Horizonte was conducted from the data of Censo Escolar 2019, specifically, the information in schools’ forms. In his form, the schools’ principals or secretaries fill the presence of lack of items, such as the supply of public services of water and light, basic sanitation and food; building architecture and its facilities; and equipment to develop didactic-pedagogical practices (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].). The data were directly imported from the INEP site and processed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software.

Initially, we selected 45 primary variables. In this selection, we sought to encompass elements present in the Parâmetros Básicos de Infraestrutura para Instituições de Educação Infantil [Basic Infrastructure Parameters for Childhood Education Instittutions] (Brasil, 2006BRASIL. Ministério da Educação. Secretaria de Educação Básica. Parâmetros Básicos de Infraestrutura para Instituições de Educação Infantil. Brasília: MEC, SEB, 2006. Disponível em: http://portal.mec.gov.br/seb/arquivos/pdf/Educinf/miolo_infraestr.pdf. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
http://portal.mec.gov.br/seb/arquivos/pd... ) and in Article 50 of the Resolution CME/BH nº 001/2015 (Belo Horizonte. 2015BELO HORIZONTE. Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Resolução CME/BH n° 001/2015. Fixa normas para o funcionamento de instituições de educação infantil do Sistema Municipal de Ensino de Belo Horizonte (SME/BH). Diário Oficial do Município, Belo Horizonte, ano 26, n. 4763, 14 mar. 2015. Disponível em: http://portal6.pbh.gov.br/dom/iniciaEdicao.do?method=DetalheArtigo&pk=1138760. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
http://portal6.pbh.gov.br/dom/iniciaEdic... ). We highlight that, as the Censo Escolar data (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].) does not inform the dimensions of the school spaces nor the quality of the items, some standards of the aforementioned documents could not be evaluated.

The primary variables were organized into thirteen items of interest (Table 1) that, by complementarity, express a situation of lower, average, and higher adequacy. This complementarity considers the amalgamation of school elements for a specific purpose. For example, the Resolution CME/BH (Belo Horizonte. 2015BELO HORIZONTE. Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Resolução CME/BH n° 001/2015. Fixa normas para o funcionamento de instituições de educação infantil do Sistema Municipal de Ensino de Belo Horizonte (SME/BH). Diário Oficial do Município, Belo Horizonte, ano 26, n. 4763, 14 mar. 2015. Disponível em: http://portal6.pbh.gov.br/dom/iniciaEdicao.do?method=DetalheArtigo&pk=1138760. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
http://portal6.pbh.gov.br/dom/iniciaEdic... ) establishes that the institutions of public childhood education in the capital should have a complete restroom for adults, children’s restrooms, restrooms for children with disabilities, and showers. The existence of four primary variables in a school in the item of interest (5) Restrooms are the most adequate situation for childhood education. In a situation in which there are no restrooms adapted for people with disabilities or showers, even if it can lead to difficulties in caring for and educating all children, but there are specific restrooms for children separated from adults, the item can be considered as ‘basic’ in this school. However, the lack of bathrooms for adults or children, leading to the sharing of these spaces by different publics and the specificities of their physiological needs, makes the situation ‘inadequate’ for this item in that institution.

Following this complementary logic, the table below presents the interest items and the primary variables used for their discrimination. It also presents the values attributed to the combinations, 2 para item “adequate”; 1 for “basic”; and 0 for “bellow basic”.

The attributed values for each interest item were calculated as scores aiming to build a synthetic index of infrastructure adequacy for comparison. The scores were transformed into a scale from 0 to 1 to make the index values more easily interpretable. The closer to 0 the school’s score, the less adequate the infrastructure was considered when compared to the national parameters and the Resolution CME/BH nº 001/2015 (Belo Horizonte. 2015BELO HORIZONTE. Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Resolução CME/BH n° 001/2015. Fixa normas para o funcionamento de instituições de educação infantil do Sistema Municipal de Ensino de Belo Horizonte (SME/BH). Diário Oficial do Município, Belo Horizonte, ano 26, n. 4763, 14 mar. 2015. Disponível em: http://portal6.pbh.gov.br/dom/iniciaEdicao.do?method=DetalheArtigo&pk=1138760. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
http://portal6.pbh.gov.br/dom/iniciaEdic... ). In contrast, the closer to 1, the more adequate the infrastructure.

The formula used to build the index was:

in which n is the maximum possible score (26 points), and x_iis the grade reached in the interest item.

The territorial arrangement in the map shape (created using the software Qgis), the synthetic infrastructure adequacy index was organized into three categories: bellow adequate, average adequacy, and higher adequacy. To do so, the schools’ scores were placed on a continuum from lower to higher. Considering this continuum, we have opted to use the interquartile range as a proxy of schools’ classification regarding infrastructure. This range composes, with the standard deviation, the variance of the statistical measures that evaluate the degree of data spreading around a center (median). While the standard deviation and the variance calculate the dispersion measure disregarding the order of the data, the interquartile range evaluates the data spreading after its ascending order (Pinheiro; Carvejal; Cunha, 2012PINHEIRO, João Ismael; CARVEJAL, Santiago; Ramirez; CUNHA, Sônia Baptista. Probabilidade e Estatística. São Paulo: Campus, 2012.).

The interquartile range is calculated using the quartiles (25% of data). The first quartile (inferior), the intermediary quartile (median), and the third quartile (superior) are connected to the concept of quartile, that is, the points established in the regular intervals from the cumulative distribution function (CDF). The quartiles divide the data ordered in q subsets of data of essentially equal dimensions. Therefore, they originate the q-Quantis established from the cutoff points determining the limits between the consecutive subsets (Pinheiro; Carvejal; Cunha, 2012PINHEIRO, João Ismael; CARVEJAL, Santiago; Ramirez; CUNHA, Sônia Baptista. Probabilidade e Estatística. São Paulo: Campus, 2012.). Thus, we established the criteria of lower, average, and higher infrastructure adequacy of EMEIs in Belo Horizonte, respectively, the scores with values under the first quartile; between the first and the third quartile; and above the third quartile.

Results and Discussion

According to the information of Censo Escolar (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].), Belo Horizonte had 145 EMEIs in 2019, 99 of them managed by PBH, the other 46, by Inova-BH/Transpes, through a public-private partnership (PPP). The first part of this section describes the adequacy levels of childhood schools considering the interest items of the research. It also discusses the inequality implications in the infrastructure of EMEIs for the education reality of children from 0 to 5 years old in the nurseries and preschools in the capital. In the second part, we test the three hypotheses of explanatory factors for inequalities.

Infrastructure conditions and Inequalities between EMEIs: evidence from the Censo Escolar

The infrastructure of school institutions is a fundamental aspect of improving the care of babies and children. In the literature, the school space is a meaningful element of the curriculum, a source of experience and learning, a living entity, concrete, considered as a pedagogical partner of the teacher, portraying the concepts of childhood, education, and teaching (Frago; Escolano, 1998FRAGO, Antônio Viñao; ESCOLANO, Augustín. Currículo, Espaço e Subjetividade: a arquitetura como programa. Rio de Janeiro: DP&A. 1998.; Horn, 2017HORN, Maria da Graça Souza. Brincar e Interagir nos Espaços da Escola Infantil. Porto Alegre: Penso, 2017.; Silva, 2023SILVA, Franceline Rodrigues. Infraestrutura Escolar da Educação Infantil em Minas Gerais: uma análise das condições de oferta. 2023. 241 f. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) – Curso de Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação: Conhecimento e Inclusão Social, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2023. (No prelo).).

Regarding the public services (water supply, electric energy, basic sanitation, and food), all EMEIs have an adequate situation. That is, all the elements determined in the legislation are present. In the other nine interest items, the schools have differences in the varied levels of inequality.

On the item restroom (Table 1), the Censo Escolar 2019 (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].) points out that half of the schools had restrooms for adults, children, adapted for people with disabilities (45.5%) and showers (55.2%). PPP built nine out of the twelve schools that had no specific restrooms.

Regarding the administrative facilities (Table 2), the principal’s office was the space that had the highest percentage of absence in the EMEIs. They were lacking in 27.6% of schools in the Censo Escolar 2019 (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].). This can be related to the fact that there were school unities until 2018. In these cases, many issues related to the principals were dealt with in the headquarter-school. The teachers’ room was present in 96.6% of the schools. Only one school, EMEI Sarandi, in the Pampulha region (built through a PPP), did not register any administrative facility in the census, informing a lack of a principal’s office, secretary, or teachers’ room.

The other focused facilities were adequate for more than half the schools (Table 3). However, a significant number of EMEIs registered in the Censo Escolar (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].), only one of the facilities: the warehouse or the pantry. The latter was more common than the first, being present in 94.5% of the records of Censo Escolar 2019 (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].) against 53,1%, respectively.

Regarding the playgrounds (Table 4), according to the Censo Escolar 2019 (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].), no EMEI had all the specific spaces listed in the regulation documents of PBH (covered yard, open space with sunlight, green area, and multiuse room). Only one in three had a green area. The same happened with covered yards and open areas. Over half of the EMEIs (53.1%) had no multiuse room.

Regarding reading spaces, more than half of the EMEIs recorded not having one in the Censo Escolar 2019 (INEP, 2019). Proportionally, there were fewer schools managed by PBH with adequate libraries than those managed by PPP. While 26.2% of PBH EMEIs were adequate, 82.6% of the Inova-BH/Transpes EMEIs had the same level, as informed in the census form by the schools’ principals or secretaries.

The playing components, in 2019, were adequate for most EMEIs of Belo Horizonte. The schools were equipped with spaces for playing and pedagogical materials, such as games and toys. Despite this, an impressive number of schools registered in the Censo Escolar that year (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].) did not have a playground (37.2%). Of these, 31 were managed by PBH and 23 by Inova-BH/Transpes.

Considering the complementary facilities, most EMEIs were adequate. More than 84% of them recorded, in the Censo Escolar (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].), that they were equipped with sound systems and multimedia and, for more than 91%, TVs and DVDs. Regarding copiers and printers used for administrative services and activities for the children, half of the schools had none of them.

The infrastructure investment is essential to combat the inequalities, the differentiated access to hygiene spaces (restrooms), administrative and complementary facilities, recreation areas, libraries, reading rooms, and equipment, such as copiers and printers. They tell us about the hierarchies and the opportunities for children and teachers to develop in the school environment. Different structures, sometimes unequal, create different learning opportunities. The government and civil society need to foment mechanisms to equalize environments that allow for more positive and successful educational experiences, aiming for education with social quality.

Do location and public-private partnership explain the inequalities?

Considering the object of infrastructure inequalities in childhood education schools in Belo Horizonte, we tested the hypothesis of the distribution of these inequalities in the territory as a possible explanatory factor. We expected that the schools with less adequate conditions (and more precarious ones) would be located in the peripheral regions and/or with a high poverty concentration, according to the pattern identified in other schooling levels in Brazilian metropolises (Érnica; Batista, 2012ÉRNICA, Maurício; BATISTA, Antônio. A Escola, a Metrópole e a Vizinhança Vulnerável. Cadernos de Pesquisa, São Paulo, v. 42, n. 146, p. 640-666, ago. 2012. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0100-15742012000200016. Acesso em: 23 jan. 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0100-1574201200... ; Érnica, 2013ÉRNICA, Mauricio. Desigualdades Educacionais no Espaço Urbano: o caso de Teresina. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, v. 18, n. 54, p. 523-788, set. 2013. Disponível em: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-24782013000300002. Acesso em: 22 jan. 2021.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-24782013... ; Koslinski; Alves; Lange, 2013KOSLINSKI, Mariane; ALVES, Fátima; LANGE, Wolfram. Desigualdades Educacionais em Contextos Urbanos: um estudo da geografia de oportunidades educacionais na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Educação & Sociedade, Campinas, v. 34, n. 125, p. 1175-1202, dec. 2013. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302013000400009. Acesso em: 23 jan. 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-7330201300... ).

When analyzing the EMEI’s spatial distribution by adequacy level regarding families’ per capita income, the data indicates that the correlation between these two variables can be considered weak (ρ_s = 0,28). This low correlation is also evident in schools’ spatial distribution in the maps (Figure 2). Thus, it is not possible to distinguish a clear correspondence between schools with less or more adequate levels and the regions with the worst economic indicators in the city (lighter areas in the maps).

Even if a smaller percentage of EMEIs was located in areas with more income (Silva; Braga; Vieira, 2021SILVA, Franceline; BRAGA, Daniel; VIEIRA, Lívia Maria. Infraestrutura das Creches e Pré-Escolas em Belo Horizonte: condições de oferta e distribuição territorial. Educação, Santa Maria, UFSM, v. 46, n. 1, p. 1-28, 2021. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufsm.br/reveducacao/article/view/42721. Acesso em: 23 dez. 2022.
https://periodicos.ufsm.br/reveducacao/a... ) – the darker blue areas in the maps– the proportion of schools with more adequate infrastructure (green points) is not substantially higher than less adequate ones (red points) to be perceptible in the graphic representation. In the same measure, the proportion of red points is not clearly distinguishable in the areas with less income per capita in the capital of Minas Gerais.

On the other hand, when evaluating the proportion of schools in each adequacy level, it is possible to make some remarks in another sense (Table 8). The data reveal that, proportionally, 29.7% of the schools from low-income neighborhoods have low adequacy of infrastructure, while 18.2% of the schools with higher per capita income were in this situation. 17.1% of the schools with higher adequacy indexes are located in the poorest neighborhoods, while the same occurred in 20,0% of the schools with more income per family.

Therefore, the analyzed data suggest some evidence that the middle and high-class neighborhoods concentrated the higher proportion of EMEIs with adequate levels of infrastructure. However, the dispersion of this type of school in the city and the dispersion of less adequate schools in the capital make the effect-territory a factor with less explanatory effect on the infrastructure inequality of the EMEIs.

We also tested the hypothesis of inequalities based on schools’ management regimes. We compared the infrastructure adequacy in the EMEIs directly run by PBH with those built and non-pedagogically managed by a public-private partnership agreement.

The 46 schools kept by PPP were relatively well-distributed in the territory (Figure 3). Only eight were located in low-income neighborhoods (five in middle-class ones and three in neighborhoods with a higher per capitaincome in the city).

The index average of schools with direct administration was slightly lower than those in Inova-BH/Transpes schools (0.64 and 0.65), according to Figure 3. However, the Mann-Whitney test showed that the administration model did not affect EMEIs’ infrastructure adequacy (U=2057,500; p>0,05). That is, there was no significant statistical difference between the medians. The variation coefficient of the adequacy levels of PBH schools was also lower than those of Inova-BH/Transpes schools, 16.7% against 18,2%. Hence, there is a higher inequality between the schools run by PPP.

Despite not having a significant statistical difference between the indexes of schools managed by PBH and by Inova-BH/Transpes, the distribution of these EMEIs by level and neighborhood class (Figure 5) allows for some reflections. While, for PBH schools, the distribution of childhood schools’ infrastructure less and more adequate is relatively equivalent in low-income and high-income neighborhoods, the same is not true for Inova-BH/Transpes schools. In these, all schools with the worst infrastructure levels are in the neighborhoods with low per capitaincome. On the other hand, two in every three schools with more adequate levels are in high-income neighborhoods.

Therefore, data suggest that the location choices to build the EMEIs by a public-private partnership follows a logic to attend to the most vulnerable population in the city. However, projects of more adequate infrastructure for childhood education seem to be prioritized for more economically- favored areas in Belo Horizonte.

Regardless, the coexistence of various adequacy levels within the same model of construction and management of EMEIs via PPP, with those of PBH, weakens the explanatory power of this variable for the infrastructure inequalities of childhood education schools. In the face of an insufficient causal explanation, a direct observation of the schools’ spaces and structure was needed.

Comparison between the data from Censo Escolar and in loco visits

Finally, we compared the Censo Escolar 2019 (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].) data with technical visits to the EMEIs in 2021. The visits took place during the field research of the Belo Horizonte phase of the Estudo Nacional sobre Qualidade da Educação Infantil² 2 The study was nationally coordinated by the Laboratório de Estudos e Pesquisas em Economia Social in Universidade de São Paulo campus Ribeirão Preto (LEPES/USP), together with Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal (FMCSV), Itaú Social, and the Movimento Bem Maior. Between November and December 2021, 400 childhood education classes were visited to analyze, based on international indicators, the quality of the level in the city. More information can be found in the site http://lepes.fearp.usp.br/estudo-nacional-de-avaliacao-da-qualidade-da-educacao-infantil/. [National Study on Childhood Education Quality] and, as presented at the beginning of the text, 117 of the 143 EMEIs in the city (82% of the total). The observation list and interviews of the Estudo Nacional involved different aspects related to the quality of learning environments, such as children’s educational opportunities, their interactions and everyday plays/games; professionals’ profiles, motivations, and needs that are part of the system; and the physical structure and organization of the unit visited.

For this study, we selected all six items in the observation list corresponding to the Censo Escolar 2019 (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].): covered and open-air schoolyard, adapted restrooms for childhood education; playground; green area; and toys. We considered only the 117 EMEIs visited. The data of Table 9 show a discrepancy between the information filled in the Censo Escolar and those checked in person:

Except for adapted restrooms and the presence of toys that, though different, had similar percentages, the distortion between the school reality informed in the Censo Escolar (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].) and that observed by the researchers was very significant. For example, though 11 EMEIs informed in the INEP form that they had no adapted restrooms for children from 0 to 5 years old, with adequate sizes, models, and materials, this situation was seen in only one EMEI. In the other ten, we saw the restroom with the needed adaptations. Likewise, none of the 117 EMEIs informed having open-air external spaces for recreational activities. However, this type of area was identified in 116 EMEIs. Forty-one EMEIs said they were not equipped with a place for childhood education with installations/equipment designed for safe recreational activities, games, and toys. However, the visits revealed that his lack could only be confirmed in two EMEIs. If we consider only the six elements previously listed, the reality of the schools could be considered more adequate than that informed in the census. Thus, it is reasonable to suppose that the other items may also present inconsistencies in their filling. The in loco visits indicate that the EMEIs of Belo Horizonte have better offer conditions and present a more adequate situation than the information indicated in the Censo Escolar.

By extension, some inadequacies of infrastructure identified in the Censo Escolar (INEP, 2019INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados].) and reported by the literature that uses this instrument to evaluate the offer conditions can partly be explained by mistaken interpretation in the filling of forms. Considering the data collection of INEP (2019)INEP. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo Escolar, 2019. Brasília: MEC, 2020. [Microdados]. aims to monitor and evaluate different aspects of Brazilian educational reality and foment public policies, the lack of accuracy in its filling can create inaccurate diagnoses and, consequently, imprecise, unnecessary, and less effective interventions, regarding the improvement of public school quality. In this sense, the secretaries and INEP should pay more attention to the adequate formation of the workers responsible for filling this data/information in the platform.

Final Remarks

To effectively fulfil the right to education presented in the 1988 Constitution, education, in all its phases, should be offered in equal conditions for access and permanence, and the guarantee of quality standards (Brasil, 1988BRASIL. Constituição Federal de 1988. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, 5 out. 1988. Seção 1. P. 1. Disponível em: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicao.htm. Acesso em: 25 jan. 2021.
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/con... , sec. I and VI of art. 206). Childhood education, as an integral part of the structure of Brazilian K-12 education since 1996 – and compulsory since 2009 – should also have adequate buildings, spaces, and facilities for the public. The increasing number of studies about the infrastructure of institutions for children between 0 to 5 years old in the Brazilian education research agenda shows this theme’s importance. After all, the school infrastructure of childhood education is one of the aspects to promote quality education; the space educates children, like a teacher; can favor learning or not; and affects users’ lives and the work satisfaction of education workers.

Despite being considered a successful experience in consolidating education for young children in nurseries and preschools and being a model and reference for other systems in Brazil, Belo Horizonte still presents inequalities in the infrastructure adequacy of its childhood education system. Though all municipal schools of childhood education in the city have their specific own buildings and are supplied by public services of water, energy, basic sanitation, and food, the Censo Escolar and the in loco research show that there are still units with no restrooms adapted for the children, green areas, children’s playgrounds and toys, libraries/reading rooms, and administrative and complementary facilities.

This work investigated if it was possible to associate the infrastructure inequalities between the EMEIs in Belo Horizonte (dependent variable) and explanatory factors (independent variables), seeking the reasons for these lingering inequalities within the same system. To do so, we tested three hypotheses: the effect territory; the presence of schools built and managed through public-private partnerships; and the filling of Censo Escolar.

The research perceived a higher proportion of less adequate schools in low-income neighborhoods in the city; and a higher proportion of schools with higher adequacy levels in neighborhoods with high per capita income. We also identified that the distribution of less and more adequate schools between the types of neighborhoods per income was more balanced between schools managed by a PBH than those of PPP. The schools with less adequate infrastructure built by agreement were all located in low-income neighborhoods, and more than half of the schools with better adequacy were concentrated in neighborhoods with higher incomes in the capital.

Even with these findings, the results do not allow us to affirm that there is a territorial distribution pattern on the infrastructure inequalities of EMEIs. The spatial distribution of more or less adequate schools encompasses areas with higher income and peripheral ones. Similarly, even if the PPP schools have infrastructure indexes with a higher average than those of PBH, this difference is not statistically significant. Besides this, the affiliated schools, even with a slightly higher average, also present a standard deviation higher than the index, indicating a higher internal inequality in the schools’ infrastructure.

Thus, the hypothesis of the location effect and the public-private partnership help to understand childhood education offered by EMEIs in Belo Horizonte but presented themselves as insufficient explanatory factors for the inequality phenomenon in the infrastructure of the institutions identified in the census tool.

We also highlight that the inequalities evidenced by the studies seem to be, to a certain measure, the direct result of the nature of the data used, as the Censo Escolar is a self-declaration filled by the schools’ principals or secretaries. It may not reliably indicate reality, which might be a limit of this public policy tool. The support for this statement can be seen through the observations held in the schools of the municipal system of Belo Horizonte.

A limitation of this research is that only some elements of the Censo Escolar were examined in loco. Therefore, we suggest other studies that locally check more items. Besides this, we need to problematize the items themselves, as well as their descriptions, in the Censo Escolar. When seeking to encompass such different phases of K-12 education, some items lose their role in the analysis and evaluation of childhood education. Furthermore, in certain aspects, the lack of elements related to structure depends on the interpretation of the professional in charge of filling in the data. Hence, we need to reflect if such metrics distort the results. We also suggest studies that consider other explanatory factors for inequalities, such as those that analyze the date of construction, transfer of management, profile of the public and type of service, eventual changes in the structural project during time, and the financial resources for EMEIs’ constructions and maintenance.

Notes

Availability of research data

the dataset supporting the results of this study is published in this article.

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