Brazil’s effort to teach Afro‑Brazilian and indigenous history and culture showed measurable progress between 2024 and 2026, according to a survey by Folha de S.Paulo. The National Index of Education for Ethnic‑Racial Relations (Erer), created by the Ministry of Education (MEC) to track compliance with Laws 10.639/2003 and 11.645/2008, rose from 47.7 to 54.2 points in state school networks and from 26.6 to 34.7 points in municipal networks on a 0‑100 scale.
Index Shows Progress
The improvement was uneven across states. Ceará led the 2026 ranking with 79 points, while Pará trailed at 17.7—a gap of 61.3 points. Acre (20.9) and Minas Gerais (31.9) also ranked among the lowest performers. The index weighs six dimensions: teacher training (33.3%), school management (33.3%), financing (11.1%), evaluation and monitoring (11.1%), institutionalization (5.6%) and teaching materials (5.6%).
Teacher Training Remains Weak
Teacher training continued to be the weakest pillar. In municipal networks, the training sub‑index rose only from 20.4 to 28.7 points, remaining among the two lowest dimensions. Nearly half of municipal systems (45%) offered no continuing‑education courses on racial equity since the launch of the National Equity, Ethnic‑Racial Relations and Quilombola School Education Policy (PNEERQ) in May 2024. The states of Acre and Pará reported zero such courses, whereas Pernambuco was the only state to report more than ten. While lectures, workshops or seminars on the topic increased from 47% to 67.2% of municipal networks, these activities carry little weight in the training score.
Management and Financing Improve
Stronger gains appeared in school management and financing. The share of municipal networks with a dedicated equity‑race team grew from 15.1% to 40.7%. Inclusion of ethnic‑racial equity as a goal in the MEC’s Articulated Action Plan (PAR) rose from 55.6% to 92.6% in state networks and from 29.3% to 65.5% in municipal networks. State networks also saw adoption of protocols for racism or insult cases jump from 59.3% to 92.6%, and the requirement for director and pedagogical coordinator selections to include knowledge of ethnic‑racial relations increased from 44.4% to 74.1%.
Financing, the dimension that grew the most, moved municipal scores from 20.6 to 39.9 points and state scores from 43.7 to 66.7 points.
Monitoring Still Limited
Use of indicators to monitor implementation increased but remained patchy. In 2026, 33.3% of municipal networks said they used indicators to track the two laws, up from 17.9% in 2024. Among state networks, the share rose from 29.6% to 59.3%. The survey covered 5,408 of approximately 5,570 municipal networks and all 27 federative units.
Zara Figueiredo, MEC Secretary for Continuing Education, Youth and Adult Literacy, Diversity and Inclusion, said the policy is in “a first phase of advancing the institutionalization of the racial‑equity agenda.” She urged that strategic, budgetary, formative and pedagogical plans place racial equity at the centre, not as an add‑on.