The municipality of Nilo Peçanha, located in the Bahia Southern Lowlands, improved its school performance to achieve a score of 4.1 for Primary School I (from 1st to 5th grade) and II (from 6th to 9th grade), as indicated by the 2011 Basic Education Development Index (IDEB). In addition to the government’s investments, actions undertaken in partnership with local institutions also helped increase the IDEB, which, in 2009, ranked the city among the 10 worst scores in Brazil.

One of the initiatives was the Training of Municipal Teachers, undertaken during the months of February and October of 2011, which proposed to support the Portuguese Language and Mathematics teachers to improve their performance in the classroom. The Pratigi Environmental Protection Area (EPA) Guardian Association and the Pratigi EPA Intermunicipal Consortium (CIAPRA) participated directly in the action, supporting the initiatives associated with the Bahia Southern Lowlands Environmental Protection Area Mosaic Program for Development and Growth Integrated with Sustainability (PDCIS), which is supported by the Odebrecht Foundation.

The Reference Schools Program also helped the schools achieve this result. The initiative sought to guarantee the qualification of the primary education system, integrating the students’ and teachers’ school activities inside the classroom.

The 2011 IDEB was disclosed by Brazil’s Ministry of Education on August 14, and based on the results, the national average was 5.0 in the lower grades and 4.1 in the upper grades.