Expansion of the Distance Modality in Brazilian Higher Education: Implications for Quality and Equity

With globalization and the knowledge society, the expansion of higher education has become an ‘object of desire’ among governments to bolster both economic growth and social development. In recent decades, just as in other countries, Brazil has expanded the system and become the fourth largest in the world in enrollment numbers, significantly increasing distance education at for-profit private institutions. However, massification without the necessary attention to quality and equity may present undesired consequences. Thus, considering Brazil has created one of the largest information databases that allow for studies with huge samples, we statistically analyzed performance in a wide scale national examination (Enade) with approximately 222,000 students, disaggregated by background and education modalities. The results back the argument that learning possibilities and performance in distance education are inferior in relation to in-person modalities and that the expansion based on distance education at for-profit private institutions may be reproducing inequalities within the higher education system in one of the most unequal nations in the world.