A new design

The program Writing the Future contributes to improving the teaching and learning of the Portuguese language in public schools throughout Brazil. Since 2002, it has been carrying out various training modes – both in-person and remote – for educators, as well as the Portuguese Language Olympiad, developed in partnership with MEC (Ministry of Education). In the year 2020, the physical distancing imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic posed an especially challenging problem for an initiative which for years has mobilized tens of thousands of teachers and students, from schools in nearly 90% of the Brazilian municipalities, and which, in parallel to the growing trend of sharing courses online, has valorized the holding of in-person activities for meetings and training sessions. Thus, the immediate efforts of the program were concentrated on giving quick answers that contribute to avoiding increases in educational inequalities; immediately enlarging the offer of online training and the availability of slots; and constructing a new format for the Brazilian Portuguese Language Olympiad, redesigning its model so that in 2021 its 7th edition is held totally online and with an even greater focus on collective production and the leading role of the educator.

Through the Writing the Future portal, an environment for the remote training of educators, the program promotes interaction between the users, and provides access to materials, methodologies, news and reports on actions. Every two years, it organizes the Portuguese Language Olympiad, a strategy for the training of teachers that is carried out through a text-production competition for public school students all around Brazil, from the 5th year of elementary school to the 3rd year of high school. Registered teachers guide their students to write texts in various categories: poems, literary memories, chronicles, opinion pieces and documentaries.

In the year 2020, the program registered the participation of 9,737 educators from 2,237 municipalities, benefiting 657 thousand children, teens and young people. Besides its growing reach, it is outstanding for the perceived high quality of its training, according to the evaluation of the users themselves. Among the participants in the training programs, 87% stated that they had expanded their knowledge in the theme considered.