Cláudio Moura Castro:
A pedido de um periódico internacional de educação, preparei um artigo revendo a minha carreira profissional. Meio embaraçoso se auto-elogiar e, pior ainda, fazer meu culpa. Fiz o melhor que pude. Aí está
The many incarnations of a curious researcher
Section snippets
Youth decisions: tools or books?
Some people find out early what they want to do in their professional life and plan their future. I am not one of them. Sometimes I thought I knew what I wanted to do. But then changed my mind. In most cases, things just happened.
Some dreams were volatile, but curiosity never abandoned me.
My first passion was tools. Recently, I found my picture, less than five years old, sitting on a bed, surrounded by tools. From this addiction I could never recover. I was less than ten years when I got my
A zigzagging educational trajectory
Initially, becoming an engineer was the obvious career choice. However, as the eldest grandson of one of the firm’s proprietors, I was in line to become an executive. Hence, why study engineering and not business? In fact, what I liked was the shop and manual work, not engineering, with its threatening mathematics.
In the event, I enrolled in a Business School in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais). I found management studies down to earth and concrete, but not too exciting. In contrast, Economics
A college lifts itself by its bootstraps
My undergraduate program was, in itself, an educational adventure. In Belo Horizonte, a mediocre bookkeeping school was suddenly merged with the Federal University of Minas Gerais. What happened afterwards is a unique case of an old-fashioned and mediocre school transforming itself into the premier program in Economics.
After the merger, an inspired Director created a first-class library and selected the best freshmen to scholarships, under which they were assigned small offices, to remain all
“Mr. Castro, you read too much and understand too little”
While attending the succession of American universities, my ego suffered a major blow. The first time I was shown a syllabus, my gut and arrogant reaction was: “I have already studied all that”. It took me a long time to discover - the hard way - that "studying" is not "learning". I consider this sobering epiphany as the most powerful impact of graduate schools in my intellectual development.
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen was the most inspiring and brutal professor in the department, but he was also
First job: a researcher fearing to become a manager
The recently created IPEA became the prestigious research branch of the Planning Ministry. There, many of the “young turks,” returning with their shiny new masters and Ph.Ds., created a critical mass in the abrupt modernization of the federal government. This happened during the military government, when the “technocrats” had ample political power to do what they thought was right.
It was an ideal setting for policy research. Being so close to the upper echelons of the government, it offered
Managing education research in Latin America during its inchoate stages
ECIEL was a Latin American consortium for comparative economic research, attached to the Brookings Institute. When the decision came to move it to Brazil, I was retained as a consultant to develop a new project in education - in ten countries. Afterwards, I became the coordinator of this project.
It was a bumpy adventure, given the lack of scientific maturity of the region in such matters. Education research in countries such as Argentina, Chile, and Colombia had already matured. Dealing with
Teaching in the first masters’ programs
In the seventies, the first master’s programs were created in Brazil. They lasted two years, plus the thesis period. Soon after, I started teaching at the Vargas Foundation and the Catholic University, both in Rio de Janeiro. From an initial beginning in Economics, I switched to the recently created education programs.
In the ultra-soft environment of educators, a firebrand economist in their milieu was somewhat upsetting. I was accepted and even welcomed, but in ten years, never invited to a
Scholarships, evaluation and crisis in graduate schools
CAPES is an agency of the Ministry of Education in charge of allocating thousands of scholarships and the coordination of all graduate schools in the country. As it happened, it was the best performing branch of this ministry.
With the change of government, I was invited to be its general director. In my previous research, I was impressed by how inane the decisions of the Ministry of Education were. Therefore, I decided on an almost suicidal experiment: to accept the position, do what I thought
Social policies at the Planning Ministry: can success lead to extinction?
When IPEA was created, as an adjunct institution to the Ministry of Planning, another one was also created to deal with social policies - its acronym was CNRH. It attracted a serious and motivated staff – an uncommon case in public service.
My colleagues from Planning had asked me for a name to direct CNRH. I obliged, suggesting a recently graduated Ph.D. Unfortunately, my suggestion was accepted and he became a most inept chief, clashing with all the technical staff. This created a major
Bullying a well-behaved group of bureaucrat-researchers
With my dissertation, I began a long sequence of studies on vocational training. For that reason, some researchers from the ILO, working in this field, knew me. An invitation came, to lead its policy unit, around a dozen officers strong.
This was a serious and hard-working group, inured to the bureaucratic styles of the house. Reflecting its location in Switzerland, the ILO is dead serious in whatever it does. Watching the group, I saw as my role to spice up the atmosphere, promote more
The collision of dogma, expediency and bureaucracy in the World Bank
The more uncomfortable my situation became at the ILO, the more I explored the possibilities of a move. As I found out, job mobility in Europe works at a snail’s pace. But I had frequent contacts with the education and training staff of the World Bank. Hence, it was the obvious choice. But where in the Bank? Latin America was already trodden territory. Africa had proven to be quite frustrating. But I was offered a position to deal with the Arab World and the crumbling Soviet Union. As an extra
The IDB, a more simpático version of the WB
After six years at the World Bank, I was invited to migrate to the Interamerican Development Bank. Historically, the World Bank was created to rescue Europe after the Second World War. The IDB was born during the Cold War and the Alliance for Progress. Of course, the IDB had much to learn from its older brother. Therefore, formally, they are very similar. In fact, strictly speaking, they are not banks, but credit unions, in which the members are governments (represented by their Finance
The design, implementation, collapse, and rebirth of a college
Pitágoras began as a cram school to prepare students for the entrance exams. It was created fifty years ago by four engineers and a biochemist (presently, only three remain). Since it was a great success, the next move was to create a high-end K-12 school. Another success. Not much later, like a few other competitors, it began preparing textbooks, complementary materials, and tutoring for teachers from other private schools. This initiative can be described as a “soft franchise.” By the end of
When a great leader creates a school
Very soon after quitting Pitágoras, I joined Positivo. As it turns out, it had a similar trajectory. Coincidence? No so much, since both were aggressive and open-minded institutions, they fit my profile.
Forty years ago, five people created a cram school program in Curitiba. With the success of the initiative, they added a K-12 school and then a university. In due time, they also created a quasi-franchise to sell services to private and public schools – akin to that of Pitágoras. The ensemble of
FASEH medical school: from near bankruptcy to victory
A highly respected ophthalmologist from Belo Horizonte purchased a proprietary medical school in a town nearby. It was then on the brink of being closed by the Ministry of Education. Considering that such schools are highly profitable, it takes tremendous incompetence to go bankrupt.
It is very difficult to obtain the authorization to open medical schools – this is why they are so profitable. Given that, locating it in an underserved location facilitates the approval. These rules are a mix of
A final balance sheet
Best of all, my career is not over yet. I still have plenty of energy for a wide range of activities. My professional life continues, a bit less strenuous than before. Fortunately, I am working on some interesting projects.
Conceiving a project, developing the details, and planning implementation, in themselves, are very exciting activities. Even if the initiative comes to nothing, the road offers plenty of rewards. Therefore, in tallying failures and successes, from the point of view of my...
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Simon Schwatsman:
A pedido da International Review of Educational Development, escrevi um pequeno ensaio refletindo sobre minha experiência de participação em estudos e elaboração de propostas de políticas públicas nas áreas de ciência, tecnologia e educação. Como é para um público internacional, achei que deveria também descrever o contexto destas experiências, desde meus tempos de faculdade em Minas Gerais na década de 60. O artigo se chama “Lighting a candle” – acendendo uma vela – e o texto, em inglês, está disponível aqui.
Eu concluo dizendo que não tenho certeza de ter tido sempre razão nas políticas que propus e nas ideias que defendi ao longo destes anos. O certo é que minhas proposições quase sempre ficavam em minoria. Minha explicação é que a escolha e implementação de políticas públicas é determinada sobretudo por uma combinação de inércia e preservação de interesses estabelecidos, e não pelo mérito das propostas, força dos argumentos ou qualidade das evidências. Pelas decisões feitas e não feitas, o Brasil tem um sistema educativo caro, inchado, ineficiente e muito resistente a buscar alternativas que poderiam levar a bons resultados se fossem postas em prática. Tomara que as coisas melhorem no futuro, o que compensaria ter passado tantos anos segurando uma vela acesa e algumas vezes queimando meus dedos.
