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Rural Education in Bahia, Brazil and Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada:

A comparative Study

Dennis Mulcahy
Marianne Oliveira Gonçalves
Renata Meira Veras

Abstract
This article intent, in a comparative way, to characterize the rural education systems in Bahia,
Brazil, and Newfoundland, Canada. The main sources of data were scientific articles, national
and state laws and guidelines. The study showed the predominance of multiseriate classes in
rural schools and the educational system organization as common characteristics between
both states. The differences were the variety of the Brazilian rural population, the different
form of educational funding and the absence of distance education in Brazilian basic
education. In general, we can consider that the development of policies to improve rural
education is still a challenge in Bahia and Newfoundland, because in both cases there has
been a significant decline in the rural population, which can jeopardize their culture and
traditions.

Key-words: Rural education; Educational System; Rural population;

1 Introduction
Rural Education is defined as being aimed at the schooling of rural social subjects,
contemplating the identity of the countryside people, their work, their culture, their
knowledge, and their struggles. This is an education implicit in the context of human
formation with emancipatory principles (Caldart, 2000).
The purpose of this study is to compare selected aspects of rural education in Bahia,
Brazil and Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada in terms of the following variables: types of
rural schools, curriculum, funding, equity issues and distance education.
Brazil has a national system of education; education policies are the same for all
states, although there are municipal, regional and federal actions. In Canada, each province
has complete and independent control over its education system. While educational policy and
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school structures may be similar in many respects across Canada, each province controls each
own system.
To achieve the objectives set, we use a comparative approach in order to contrast the
variables raised in the differente education rural systems in Bahia and Newfoundland and
Labrador thet we have chosen in this study. The fundamental stages of our comparative study
are: Descriptive phase (aimed at presenting the data collected separately for each of the
comparative units); interpretative phase (which aims to interpret the data that have been
discussed in the foregoing phase); Comparative phase (aimed at drawing of comparative
conclusions).

2 Types of Rural Schools

Rural education is still a topic that needs more attention around the world. The lack of
educational policies related to the rural population reveals the need for more studies about the
rural culture as an important element for the development of the next generations. Therefore,
to study and investigaty polices public to rural schools with a contextualized didactic-
pedagogical bias becomes important in the development of sustainable actions and meeting
the rural communities demands.
Rural education in Brazil and Canada exists through formal education at different
levels of education, organized by the public, private, community network, and social
movements.

2.1 Bahia
Bahia is the largest state in the northeastern region and fifth largest in Brazil with a
territorial unit of approximately 564,732,450 square kilometers. It has an estimated population
of 15,344,447 inhabitants, according to the 2017 IBGE demographic census. Bahia’s
municipal demographic density is quite diverse, with the most inhabited areas located on the
coast and surrounding areas and the less inhabited areas in the Center, North, San Francisco
Valley and in the State West. According to data from 2010, Bahia had the largest rural
population in Brazil, about 3,914,430 inhabitants, however, rural poplational growth has been
negative in the last decade, approximately -9% (Silva e Silva, 2011). The population density
of the state is 28.4% per square kilometer.
According to the State Education Council of Bahia, the rural populations include
family farmers, fishermen, riverine people, settlers, rural workers, quilombolas, indigenous
people, caboclos (people mixed with indigenous and white people), settlers and members of
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social movements or any population who shares the rural culture and social life (Brazil,
2006).
This is a historical struggle for the creation of schools and the development of
pedagogical models that converge with the cultural reality of each population, especially the
population living far from urban centers. Data from the Brazilian Census of 2010 shows that
there are currently four types of municipal schools in rural areas, classified as quilombola
schools, indigenous schools, agrarian reform settlement schools and undifferentiated schools.
Quilombola schools were implemented based on the National Curriculum Guidelines
for Quilombola School Education – Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para Educação
Quilombola (Brazil, 2012), with the objective of creating schools in quilombola territories,
inserting in the educational process their own pedagogies, ethnic-racial consciousness and
appreciation of the cultural diversity of this people (Brazil, 2012). For Leite (2008),
recognition of quilombola schools also emerges as a strategy to combat racism and
discrimination against black people, and new curriculum can be created that values African
culture and history in Brazil. Based on INEP surveys, until 2014 Bahia had 443 quilombola
schools in rural territory (INEP, 2014). It is important to note that this population is part of the
remaining quilombos, places where the enslaved negroes fled to.
Regarding indigenous schools, although since 1996 the LDB already guarantees the
creation of schools and integrated programs of education and research, offering bilingual and
intercultural school education to indigenous peoples, only in 2009 was the First National
Conference on Indigenous School Education and, in 2012, the National Curricular Guidelines
for Indigenous Education (Brazil, 2012), giving support and legitimacy to indigenous schools
in the national territory. Santos, Martins and Saraiva (2011) affirm that in the State of Bahia
there are 57 indigenous schools, 99 villages in 22 municipalities. The indigenous people from
Bahia are: Atikum, Funiô and Kariri Xocó, Kaimbé, Kantarrié, Kiriri, Kiriri Barra, Pankarare,
Pankaru , Pataxó, Pataxó Hã Hã Hãe, Tupinambá, Tuxá, Tumbalalá and Xucuru-Kariri.
The settlement schools are the schools located in the Settlements and agrarian reform
camps and follow the regiment of the National Program for Education in Agrarian Reform -
Programa Nacional de Educação da Reforma Agrária (PRONERA), created in 1998 by the
Federal Government, with the objective of strengthening the rural territory through policies of
social, economic, environmental and educational development (PNERA, 2015). According to
Leite (2008), the MST also has itinerant schools that follow specific pedagogies of the
movement and move to depend on the collective need for migration.
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It is important to emphasize the existence of Youth and Adult Education – Educação

de Jovens e Adultos (EJA) that is configured as a modality of education that covers all levels
of Basic Education in the country, aiming at young people and adults who did not continue
their studies and for those who did not have access to schooling in childhood.
Finally, undifferentiated schools encompass populations living in rural areas that do
not fall into the groups mentioned above. Bahia has 9,193 rural schools (INEP, 2017). It is
important to note that Bahia was the state with the largest number of schools closed in 2013,
872 in total. Since then, several social movements have been mobilized, pressing the Federal
Government to create Law 12,960, which forced municipal and state education managers and
councils to consult the community before the school is closed. This initiative has as principle
to make it difficult to close schools in the rural territories of Brazil.

2.2 Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador joined the Canadian federation in 1949. In terms of
population, Newfoundland and Labrador is the second smallest province in Canada in terms
population: 528, 448. However, it occupies a large geographical area of 405, 212 km. The
vast majority of land is uninhabited. 41% of population live in areas classified as rural. The
population density for the province is 1.4 persons per square kilometer (Stats NL, 2017).
The rural population in Newfoundland and Labrador is composed especially of
fishermens and aborigines (to a lesser extent). Although fisheries are currently the local basis
economy for a large part of rural communities, in the years of 1992 there was overfishing of
fish added to maladministration leading to a fishing crisis (Mulcahy, 2005).
This fact resonated in the situation of education in the whole territory, because has
raised levels of unemployment in the region, as well as immigration.. Today, one of the main
challenges for the population of this territory is the reduction of enrollment in rural schools,
which affects education investments. Decrease in financial resources, material structure and
assistance are some of the consequences. Between 1995 and 2013 alone, there was a 40%
decline in enrollment in rural schools in less than two decades. By the year 2013, the total
number of registrations was 67,436 in Newfoundland and Labrador (Mulcahy, 2015).
The main reasons for this decline are the historical migration that the fishermen
suffered as a result of the cod crisis and the overvaluation of oil. This has led to the
deceleration of the fishing economy. These two phenomena (cod crisis and oil extraction),
when combined, produce three population profiles in the rural zone: (1) immigrants who leave
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their region and do not return, which means that population density decreases every year; (2)
people who migrate to other localities in search of employment, but return when they retire,
(3) young people who have dropped out of school or end up with difficulties(Mulcahy, 2015).
According to The rural-urban gap in education document (2006), the rural canadians
students have a higher abandonment rate when compared to urban areas, and these data
persist in all provinces, not just Newfoundland and Labrador . This shows that rural education
is a challenge not only for less centralized areas, but for the whole country.
Up to 2008, 280 rural schools were registered in operations in the province. According
to same year, 22.9% of these schools had less than 100 students enrolled, this being a
reflection of the decrease of the population of young students.

3 Rural Curriculum
3.1 Bahia
In terms of operationalization, according to the most current legislation (Law no.
12796, 2013), basic compulsory schooling should cover between 4 and 17 years of age. The
stages can be subdivided between child education, elementary and high school, with primary
education lasting 9 years and secondary education lasting 3 years (Brazil, 2013). The school
hours may be part-time (morning or afternoon - minimum of 4 hours), part time at night and
full time (shift intervals or single shift with a school day of at least 7 hours).

In contrast, quilombola and indigenous schools have specifications regarding:

"IV - Flexibility, if necessary, of the school calendar, routines and activities, taking into account
differences in economic and cultural activities, maintaining the total number of compulsory annual
hours in the curriculum; V - overcoming the social and school inequalities that affect these populations,
guaranteeing the right to education "(p. 46, Brazil, 2013).

As well as the workload, the calendar and the study routines, the teaching materials
should also include access to the culture and specific ways of life of each population. In order
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to do so, in 2009, the National Book and Didactic Material Program – Programa Nacional do
Livro Didático (PNLD) was created to evaluate and make available didactic, pedagogical and
literary works, among other materials to support educational practice, in a systematic, regular
and free way in Brazil. For rural reality, PNLD was created with the aim of forming an
articulated network of actions aimed at "teacher training, production of specific didactic
material, access and recovery of infrastructure and quality of education in the field in all
stages and modalities "(Brazil, 2010).
In general, although there is a common national base, the guidelines are clear when
they signal the need to adapt the curricula to regional peculiarities, possibilitating a curricular
organization that is congruent with the reality of the rural area, since the Brazilian rural
territory is marked by struggles, achievements and, mainly, by the diversity of populations
that compose this complex scenario. For Macedo (2007), in the last two decades, the mission
of Brazilian educators has been to subvert the fragmented disciplinary logic, making the
students relearn to look at reality in a more integrated way with history. Curricula adapted to
the singularities of the field would represent, in this context, a paradigm shift, by enabling a
non-hegemonic look at the disciplines, pedagogical and didactic methods and topics
addressed in the classroom. From this perspective, the rural curriculum should:
"I - recognition of their own ways of life, their cultures, traditions and collective memories, as
fundamental for the constitution of the identity of children, adolescents and adults; II - valorization of
knowledge and the role of these populations in the production of knowledge about the world, its natural
and cultural environment, as well as the environmentally sustainable practices they use; III -
reaffirmation of ethnic belonging, in the case of quilombola communities a(nd indigenous peoples, and
the cultivation of the mother tongue in the school for the latter, as important elements of identity
construction” (p. 46, Brazil, 2013).

The curriculum is an important tool for (re) orientation of trajectories and knowledge
within the school. According to Macedo (2007), the curriculum is beyond the composition of
pre-programmed subjects and contents. It is a political, social, cultural and, above all, identity
element. Therefore, all school events, whether formal or informal, are part of the curriculum,
because they involve citizenship, holistic and human training, not just the disciplinary and
sequential form. The elaboration of the curriculum must be aligned with the social and
cultural context in which the school is inserted, assuming the commitment of social
transformation, expansion of the intellectual sphere of students, respect for ethnic-racial and
economic diversity and consonance with the problems faced in the contemporary world.
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In Brazilian schools, the compulsory curriculum is designed from the Political

Educational Project – Projeto Político Pedagógico (PPP), a document prepared by the
academic community (coordination, teachers and educators), with the purpose of building
objectives and training proposals for schools. Veiga (1998) states that the PPP has a political
dimension, related to the collective interests and reality of each school community, and a
pedagogical dimension, related to the formative, didactic and pedagogical objectives of the
school environment. In its official documents, the MEC points to the principle of democratic
management in the composition of the PPP, requiring that this process be collective, result of
diverse outlooks (Brazil, 2010).
Therefore, training in the rural areas should involve scientific, social and human
knowledge, as well as cultural manifestations of each population. This will enable curricula to
be connected with rural issues, while providing broad and targeted training. The possibility of
organizing their own timetables and schedules strengthens the idea of democratic
management, social participation and self-organization, emancipating rural schools from the
technical and theoretical traditionalism that accompanied them during Brazilian history.
To Arroyo, Carldart and Molina (2008), another point to be highlighted in the
curricula of basic education in the field is the serial organization. For the authors, we can not
transpose the structure of the urban school into the rural school, on the contrary, we must
offer real conditions of adaptation and progress of this population in formal education. In this
scenario, multi-seriate schools appear as alternatives to the lack of physical and human
resources in the rural area. Parente (2014), describes that the multi-seriate school "can be
characterized as a policy of democratization of access to education" (p.58), since it allows
access to formal education, despite the few professionals in the field and the precarious
physical space for the classes. Data from the school census show that, up to 2009 there were
50,000 multi-seriate schools in Brazil, with a greater concentration in the northeast and
center-west regions (Brazil, 2009).
Thus, it can be seen that policies aimed at curriculum reformulation of the rural
curricula have gained relevance in recent years. Among the actions foreseen by the laws and
governmental programs, the multisseriate schools and the adaptation of the contents are more
expressive when we think of the change of the logic of the urban school. However, these
proposals need to reflect the reality of daily school life, expressing a specific school model
that values the culture of the different ethnic-racial groups living in the rural areas.
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Although there has been a broadening of the discussions and implementation of

policies for basic education in urban and rural Brazil in the National Survey of Continuous
Household Samples – Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) of the IBGE, in
2016, Brazil presented illiteracy rates of 7,2 %, representing approximately 11,8 million
illiterates throughout Brazil, considering that 51% of the general population completed only
the initial years of elementary education. In this scenario, the Northeast, which encompasses
Bahia and 8 other states, had the highest rate of illiteracy (14,8%) in the country. It is
important to point out that the highest school dropout rate is between black and caboclo
people (people who have some miscegenation, usually children of white or indigenous
individuals with afrodescendants).
These figures show that, although schooling is compulsory in Brazil, it is still not a
reality that reaches all Brazilians, which indicates the insufficiency of public policies of
permanence and access. Furthermore, it is possible to perceive the ethnic percentage that the
school failure reaches and its relation with the ethnic groups present among the rural
populations (quilombolas and indigenous).

3.2 Newfoundland and Labrador

The basic canadian compulsory schooling have regular education lasts 12 years and
consists of pre-elementary education, which lasts from 1 to 5 years; Elementary ranging from
6 to 11 years of age; And high school, equivalent to high school, which runs from 12 to 17
years old.
The elementary school hours are 7 to 8 hours a day, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. In
secondary schools, the shifts are usually between 08:30 and 02:30p.m. Extracurricular
activities and sports are scheduled after school hours. Classes in public schools are held
Monday through Friday and there are no classes on Saturdays or Sundays. Canada also has
what it calls "semester secondary schools," where, instead of the eight standard subjects being
taught during the year, four subjects are taught each period, with a long lesson (usually 70
minutes) on each subject every days.
In elementary, the curricular organization is delineated from the culture and the
formative objectives of each community. The basic disciplines in this period are mathematics,
geography, crafts, music, science, art, and physical education. Language courses are
introduced in the final years, depending on the curriculum.
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In secondary schools, curricula are geared towards preparing the student for the
demands of the adult world. In general, compulsory curricular subjects should be studied for a
specific period, as required by each province. Homogeneously, they include English (or
French), mathematics, general science, health, sport (physical education) and social studies or
social sciences. In addition to the compulsory subjects offered, students can choose optional
subjects, allowing them to draw an individualized curriculum design. In the final years,
students receive educational and professional advice, which allows a greater degree of safety
and maturity for the student to choose the post secondary course.
In operationalization terms, Newfoundland and Labrador schools are administered by
school councils through their district offices. This includes organization and primary,
elementary and secondary education within their districts. These councils are responsible for
selecting and acquiring appropriate support materials for the school system with the
Department of Education evaluating and assisting with maintenance, recording and
monitoring of education data in the province.

To Mulcahy (2008), the curriculum not only allows students to have more autonomy
in the learning process, but allows more assertive post-secondary choices. As in Brazil, the
Canadian studies point to the need to adapt the curriculum to the cultural needs of each
population. There is, therefore, a concern to make the education system attractive, so that
students in rural areas have an interest in completing their studies and, above all, taking
responsibility for the learning process.
In 1996, the document "Structuring the Education System: A Public Consultation
Document for Educational Change in Newfoundland and Labrador, " colaborated to the
strengthening of rural schools in the region. The initial aim of the government was to close
small rural schools, however, due the education bases proposals, educational reform followed
the commitment to community education, since school is an important and interdependent
element in the rural world. For Mulcahy (2008), "a community school provides a connection
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with the past, a sense of continuity and a sign of vitality and viability of the community" (p. 2,
2008).
In Newfoundland and Labrador, approximately 60% of schools are classified as rural,
which justifies concern about the organization, curriculum and future of these schools. This is
a fact across the country. According to Lefebvre (1971), economic changes in the globalized
world are linked to population movements such as immigration to the city, concentration and
decentralization, population regroupings and new agglomerations. This strengthens the
opposition between the city and the countryside because people imagine that small rural
communities are synonymous with non-development. The objective of curricular adaptation
to the rural reality is the appreciation of rural culture and traditions.
It is also important to note that multiseriate series are quite common in the province.
This merger usually occurs when there are not enough students, which leads to a reduction of
investments. In 2007, approximately 37% of schools in rural areas were multi-seriates.

4 Funding Education
4.1 Bahia
The Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and Appreciation
of Education Professionals – Fundo de Manutenção e Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica e
de Valorização dos Profissionais da Educação (FUNDEB) entered into force in 2007, with
the objective of distributing the financial resources allocated to basic education among the
Brazilian states (Brazil, 2007). The FUNDEB's resources include urban education, rural
education, indigenous and quilombola education, youth and adult education, special education
and technical education. If the resources are insufficient for the federal entities, there will be a
complementation of the Union.
The distribution of resources is made between states, municipality and Federal District
through the number of enrollments, and the value of the feature released will depend on the
estimated number of enrollments in each school in the previous year. Municipalities and states
must work in an articulated way to offer elementary education.
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In addition, FUNDEB is also a policy of valuing education professionals, ensuring that

at least 60% of the funds raised in the appreciation of these professionals (Brazil, 2007).

4.2 Newfoundland and Labrador

Canada has ten provinces and three different territories. Each of the provinces has a
degree of autonomy from the federal government, so they can create laws, providential taxes,
and are responsible for the educational system.
Therefore, it is important to emphasize that in Brazil the national education system is
represented by the Ministry of Education, in Canada each province has departments or
ministries of education which are responsible for the organization, provision and evaluation of
education at the elementary and secondary levels. The public schools funding is
responsibility of provincial education departments and funded especially by local and
provincial taxes and a small part of federal funds. Provincial education departments
determine education policy in accordance with provincial laws, and the education minister is
responsible for creating and elaborating national educational issues, such as the allocation of
provincial and federal funds, certification of teachers, books didactic and librarian services,
provision of educational records and statistics and definition and application of compulsory
schooling.
As can be noted, Canada's educational system is decentralized and schools are run by
local school authorities. Newfoundland and Labrador is divided at local level into school
districts governed by superintendents and a locally elected school council. Therefore, funding
related to teacher contraction, school bus, safety, and all necessary action to maintain schools
is the responsibility of the council.

5 Equity Issues
5.1 Bahia
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The rural education diagnostic (Brazil, 2007) points to the main rural education
challenges in the coming decades as (1) the precariousness of infrastructure and unavailability
of materials in most schools; (2) the difficulties of teachers and pupils' access to schools,
since, although Law 9.394 / 96 guarantees the student of the public school the right to school
transportation as a means of facilitating access to education, in some cases public
transportation is inaccessible due to the lack of interests of the governors, the precariousness
of the roads or the existence of inadequate transport vehicles; (3) the lack of qualified and
effective teachers, which causes constant turnover, since many of these professionals receive
training focused on urban reality; (4) the presence of school curriculum that privileges urban
knowledge of education and development, making it difficult to value, understand and
preserve the traditional rural knowledge; (5) the lack of pedagogical assistance and school
supervision in rural schools; (6) the predominance of multiseriate classes with low quality of
teaching, since the training of teachers for this type of education is still a new reality in Brazil;
(7) the lack of updating of pedagogical proposals of rural schools and (8) the low school
performance of students and high rates of age-grade distortion, a product of the physical,
material and pedagogical conditions that exist in rural schools and the historical rural context
brazillian.
Although this research was done in 2007, several issues remain current. If, on the one
hand, public policies in recent years have moved towards greater educational equity between
the rural areas and urban centers (such as Pronacampo, PNLD, FUNDEB, among others),
many challenges still need to be addressed.
In 2014, 4,084 rural schools were closed in Brazil, of which 21,35% were located in
Bahia. Despite the multi-determination of factors, more recent research has pointed to a direct
link between the closure of the rural schools and the issues already mentioned in the 2007
survey. The precarious conditions of education, the lack of school transportation, the
inaccessibility of teaching materials leading to the migration of rural students to more
populated rural communities or to the nearest urban centers (Munarin and Locks, 2012). This
phenomenon causes students to spend less time in contact with their local culture, spend hours
in transportation schools and end up giving up continuing their studies, raising rates of
disapproval and abandonment in rural schools. Data from the INEP in 2017 show that in
Bahia alone, 40% of the rural students give up completing basic education (INEP, 2017).
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This has been a reality in most Brazilian states, leading to the belief that recent
policies have helped to reduce inequality between the rural areas and the city, but have not yet
been able to address the challenges of rural education.

5.2 Newfoundland and Labrador

According to Mulcahy (2015), rural educational challenges faced in Newfoundland
and Labrador are of a social nature, the product of a historical process that provoked a great
flow of immigration with in the province. The main ones refer to (1) transformation of
families, since one or more family members immigrates to work in other localities for long
periods, which causes a large number of families to be separated from their land; (2) Sport
travels and extracurricular activities are also difficult, considering the difficulty with public
transportation, as often smaller rural schools do not have adequate infrastructure for these
activities to take place; (3) Lack of substitute teachers and unavailability of specialist teachers
who are willing to migrate to these localities, usually teachers turn out to be local people who
have returned from their studies to work in their homeland; (4) Technological problems
related to the unstable Internet access, because students from isolated communities may not
always have access to quality technology; (5) Increased number of special needs students,
which also requires a greater degree of adaptation of the school; (6) Decrease of schools and
increase of multiseriate classes.
Although some local authorities and university professors are struggling to keep rural
schools open and running, the small number of students (sometimes schools have only 50 to
100 students) makes it impossible for the school to remain alone. So, the closure of rural
schools the main imminent danger in province.

6 Distance Education
6.1 Bahia
Through Decree 9057/17, in May 2017, MEC regulated the provision of distance
education (EAD) in Brazilian basic education, as an alternative to the lack of presential
teachers in elementary and high school disciplines and as a means of access for students who
are unable to attend classroom instruction for any reason. Under the decree, it will be the
responsibility of the states, municipalities and Federal District to authorize the operation of
these courses and institutions at a distance (Brazil, 2017).
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However, a few days after its publication, the same decree was revised, reducing
situations where the EAD modality is allowed. Thus, EAD in basic education works only for
technical and vocational training in High School. The reasons involve the precariousness of
teachers' working conditions through the adoption of measures that would reduce the number
of hiring professionals and would not guarantee the improvement of the quality of Brazilian
education.
In other scenarios, EAD is an educational modality that has been growing
continuously in Brazil, especially in higher education and in EJA, as a way of increasing the
population's access to higher education and supplementary education (Arruda and Arruda,
2015).

6.2 Newfoundland and Labrador

Rural schools in Newfoundland and Labrador have adopted an online teaching and
learning model for secondary and primary education. This model brings more flexibility and
diversity to the rural school curriculum, considering that this model reduces the need for
immigration and the problem of lack of teachers in regions farthest from the centers.
Since 1988 distance education has become a welcome discussion in the province,
initially in post-secondary education. The expansion of this model led to the incorporation of
the technology into the classroom of basic education, starting with the creation of the Center
for Distance Learning and Innovation (CDLI) in 2001, with the objective of offering distance
learning courses for students from small schools rural areas.
According to Hobbs (2004), distance education is a viable alternative for rural schools
that have low funding because it is a way to attract qualified teachers and offer specific
courses, expanding the educational opportunities of students. In addition, distance education
helps to reduce school dropout and retention, increasing future prospects in post-secondary
education. In the long run, students in rural communities would be better prepared to help
with local development, rather than following the imigrants flow.
Currently, the government's intention is to expand distance education throughout the
province, helping to support schools for greater broadband connectivity in remote areas.

7 Considerations about similarities and differences

The objective of this article was to carry out a comparative analysis between Bahia and
Newfoundland and Labrador to address the issue of rural education in these places.
 15

The Comparative Analysis of Rural Education, through a literature review, shows several
similarities and differences between the two States.

(1) In both cases, difficulties can be seen in the implementation of a rural education system
that is more adapted to their reality, with curricula and professionals prepared for such
challenges. The territorial distance in rural areas is an element that sometimes makes it
difficult for specialized teachers to travel to these regions, compromising the quality of rural
education.

(2) It may be noted that in Newfoundland and Labrador, distance education is a training
strategy widely discussed and operationalized in the rural area, although it faces challenges
related to technological quality and broadband. In Bahia and Brazil there is resistance
regarding the implementation of a distance education system and the maintenance of a quality
education.

(3) There is an ancient historical interest of the government in improving rural education in
Newfoundland. In Brazil, education projects for the rural population are still recent and have
emerged from the demands of social movements.

(4) The rural schools closure has been a problem in both places. Immigration seems to be
primarily responsible for this phenomenon.

(5) The lack of teachers, school retention and school dropout were the main chalenges of rural
education in both Bahia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

(7) The Brazilian educational system, as in Canada, is organized in public and private schools.
In Bahia, they are maintained and supervised by state and municipal power. In Newfoundland
and Labrador, through the councils and the ministry of education.

(8) The multiseriate classes are present in both cases, and more studies are needed on the
consequences of this modality for learning, as well as formative alternatives for teachers who
face this reality.

(9) In both countries, one can note the efforts of local people to keep rural schools open,
valuing rural culture and their ancestral contributions. Although this same effort on the part of
the government leaderships is not noticed.

(10) The types of rural education are varied. Brazil has a colonization history that involves
many cultural elements, which contributes to population diversity. In Canada, even if there is
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not such a strong miscegenation, migratory flows have contributed to the fact that ethnic
diversity is also present in the rural population profile.

8 Conclusion
Schools aim to empower students in all walks of life and, especially, in social
development. Rural education is relevant to the preservation of the culture and identities of
each country. Therefore, it is necessary to develop more research like this, aimed at the
promotion of educational transformation, especially in countries that are still in the process of
consolidation and struggle for an affordable and quality rural education, such as Brazil.
This study helped to realize that immigration to large centers and the closing of rural
schools is a global phenomenon, not just in developing countries, as you can imagine.
Government policies for the rural population seem to be the way out for the maintenance and
historical valuation of peasant cultures. However, efforts must be made to combat the
commodification of education and state regulation, strengthening small communities so that
they can develop organically.