Academic ranking in Brazil

measuring tape

In Brazil, it has established since 2004 a ranking for higher education called, Índice Geral de Cursos (General Course Index). It is presumed to indicate the quality of higher education by establishing common evaluation among all higher education institutions. More detail on the index can be obtained here (INEP).

Very briefly, undergraduate, master and PhD programs are evaluated, a number ranging from 0 (very bad) to 5 (excellent) is obtained. Later this continuous number (IGC Continuous) is stratified into integers representing the IGC Grade from 0 (very bad) to 5 (excellent). For example, the IGC Grade of 5, correspond to a IGC Continuous from 3,945 to 5.

The data illustrated below (using Google Fusion Table) is the one recently released, in December 2014, which is related to the year 2013. Current and past data can be obtained here in an electronic spreadsheet format.

In the map below, the highest concentration of IGC Grade 5, is as expected among the southeastern region (Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo), which corresponds to nearly half (43%) of the Brazilian population and about 55% of the National GDP (for the year of 2012). More specifically the state of São Paulo alone is responsible for 32% (nearly 1/3) of the National GDP, and 1/5 of the population. Of course the education output is correlated to GDP as expected.

The big questions are: what are the problems with most of higher education? Can a successful case be applied elsewhere?

N.B.: Please note that a red dot, indicating an IGC Grade 5 also indicates a "Without Grade" case (SC: Sem Conceito). All you need is to click above each dot and a popup will appear with each evaluation points.

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