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I'm Brazilian, and I think I can add some context. I think OP's perspective is just survivor bias. Our public (state-owned) education system (pre-college) is d

I'm Brazilian, and I think I can add some context. I think OP's perspective is just survivor bias. Our public (state-owned) education system (pre-college) is doing very bad, scoring poorly on PISA[0] year after year. On the other hand, the public tertiary education system is very advanced, but getting into it is tough and supporting the academic environment is also difficult (we have very high dropout rates in most STEM courses). Most upper middle-class families also expect that their children will study at a public university, so they're forced to study hard to pass in the admission exam. Also, keep in mind that most Brazilians don't speak a second language and those who do, are generally from a more affluent background or from a poorer background but with a good academic track record that granted them a scholarship to a private institution in high school or earlier. So, those brilliant engineers he mentioned are probably some of those people: smart people that got into the top-notch of our education system (by either being gifted or because they just got used to studying for long hours because their parents demanded it). However, the inequality within the country is abysmal. For every talented, smart Brazilian engineer, there are hundreds of functional illiterates - a 2012 study estimated that 38% of our college students are functional illiterates[1]. A classic tale of South American inequality. PS: The government has admittance quotas in the public universities for students coming from poorer backgrounds (income, race or coming from public high schools). This helped shift the balance in those institutions, but since the admission is based on an exam[2], you can still expect those students to be above the average since there are always more students taking the test than there are available vacancies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St... [1] https://guiadoestudante.abril.com.br/universidades/pesquisa-revela-que-38-do-estudantes-no-ensino-superior-nao-sabem-ler-e-escrever-plenamente https://guiadoestudante.abril.com.br/universidades/pesquisa-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibular_exam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibular_exam

bilekas 3y ago
Sorry I'm late replying to this but I think you raise actually a very valid point. I went and read the Feynman article and I have experienced this myself in the Irish education system. People tend to study only for the exam without understanding the problem. Survivor bias is certainly a factor here and thanks for pointing it out! As for the affluent people I'm sure that does play in also. The developer i advocated for however was extremely poor and came from the favelas. I only knew about this after and I realize for sure that is the exception but I think it furthers your point of survivor bias!
_trackno5 3y ago
I’ll just add to OP’s point with my own example: I’m a Brazilian that grew up in a middle-class family and sort of “made it” working at multiple FAANG in my 20s. OP is totally right that our education system is broken. I was lucky enough that my dad worked at Petrobras (Brazilian oil company) and, at the time, they payed for half my high school fees. I also had a 50% scholarship and that made it possible for my parents to send me to a good private school. Initially I got into a sort of public “trade school” in high school. I was taking high school classes in the morning and IT/programming classes in the afternoon. After a month of that I just quit and asked my parents to go back to the private school because I felt I wouldn’t be able to pass the university entrance exams if I stayed there. That’s how bad it was. As to the Brazilians working hard, yeah I agree with that. After I went to the private high school I took the trade school entrance exam again, but this time to take the classes at night. My second and third years of high school were pretty much: Wake up at 5.30am, go to high school till 1pm, go to a “cram school” in the afternoon to practice for the university entrance exams, and then from 7pm to 11pm go to trade school. Looking back I’m not sure how I managed that. I even developed some serious migraines due to the lack of sleep and stress. Thankfully it went away after I went to uni and my workload dropped. I was just really lucky to be in a position where I could go all in. Unfortunately the reality is that most people don’t have an environment that would allow them to do that.

bilekas 3y ago

Sorry I'm late replying to this but I think you raise actually a very valid point. I went and read the Feynman article and I have experienced this myself in the Irish education system. People tend to study only for the exam without understanding the problem. Survivor bias is certainly a factor here and thanks for pointing it out! As for the affluent people I'm sure that does play in also. The developer i advocated for however was extremely poor and came from the favelas. I only knew about this after and I realize for sure that is the exception but I think it furthers your point of survivor bias!

_trackno5 3y ago

I’ll just add to OP’s point with my own example: I’m a Brazilian that grew up in a middle-class family and sort of “made it” working at multiple FAANG in my 20s. OP is totally right that our education system is broken. I was lucky enough that my dad worked at Petrobras (Brazilian oil company) and, at the time, they payed for half my high school fees. I also had a 50% scholarship and that made it possible for my parents to send me to a good private school. Initially I got into a sort of public “trade school” in high school. I was taking high school classes in the morning and IT/programming classes in the afternoon. After a month of that I just quit and asked my parents to go back to the private school because I felt I wouldn’t be able to pass the university entrance exams if I stayed there. That’s how bad it was. As to the Brazilians working hard, yeah I agree with that. After I went to the private high school I took the trade school entrance exam again, but this time to take the classes at night. My second and third years of high school were pretty much: Wake up at 5.30am, go to high school till 1pm, go to a “cram school” in the afternoon to practice for the university entrance exams, and then from 7pm to 11pm go to trade school. Looking back I’m not sure how I managed that. I even developed some serious migraines due to the lack of sleep and stress. Thankfully it went away after I went to uni and my workload dropped. I was just really lucky to be in a position where I could go all in. Unfortunately the reality is that most people don’t have an environment that would allow them to do that.