and selection bias problems, find positive effects for some disciplines and grades and specific types of teacher pre-service education (Wayne and Youngs, 2003; Harris and Sass, 2011).

The objectives of this study are (i) to investigate the effects of the increase in the share of public upper secondary school teachers with higher education on students learning in math and Portuguese and (ii) to analyze the role of the pre-service training institutional framework on the quality of teachers in recent years. To this end, we first present the recent changes on teachers’ pre-service training in Brazil and an overview of the empirical literature on the subject. Subsequently, we carry out an empirical analysis in which we estimate the Average Treatment Effect on the performance of public upper secondary students. We conclude with a discussion on how the current policies affect the quality of teachers in Brazil.

# **2. Key issues on teachers’ pre-service training in Brazil**

A new regulation on pre-service training was established since the publishing of the LDB in 1996, whose article 62 defined the minimum requirements for teaching in basic education. LDB first determined that basic education teachers should be trained at the tertiary level, in _licenciatura_ courses. The exception was a specific upper secondary level training, called _Normal_ course, for teaching exclusively in early childhood and early grades of primary education. In 1999, the decree number 3276/99 established that the training for teaching in specific fields of knowledge, such as math, biology, physics, etc., would be required for one to hold a teaching position for a specific subject. After that, the resolution CNE number 02 of 2015, which defines the National Curriculum Guidelines for Teacher Training, established three pre-service training options that certify teachers for basic education: (i) _licenciatura_ degree, with a duration of four academic years and a minimum of 3,200 hours of academic work; (ii) _second licenciatura_ degree, for _licenciatura_ degree holders that want to teach another subject, with a reduced minimum workload of 1,200 hours; and (iii) _pedagogical supplementation_ , for bachelor degree holders, which require a minimum of 1,000 hours for the completion depending on the equivalence between graduation already obtained and the field of the intended pedagogical training.<sup>2</sup> There are many questions about the quality of teachers in Brazil related to the framework of preservice training and the governance of the system. For example, what was the effect of the increase in teachers ́ education requirements on basic education students' learning? Is the public education system not able to attract top performance secondary schools’ graduates? Is there a problem of quality in teacher training courses? Regarding pre-service training, the literature points to the existence of two major vectors that may affect the quality of teachers: the first considers aspects of the educational background of those interested in a teaching career; the second is regarded to the profile and structure of tertiary education (Bruns and Luque, 2015).<sup>3</sup> The significant increase in coverage of primary and secondary education observed until the middle of the 2000s in Brazil required hiring new teachers, which resulted in a change in the profile of the newcomers in this career (Lerch et al, 2010). In response to the rapid increase in demand for teachers with degrees, there was a boom in the provision of tertiary education programs. As a result, secondary education graduates from lower socioeconomic background joined the teaching career.

The percentage of public upper secondary education teachers who hold a tertiary degree increased from 82% to 93% in more than 20 years, mainly due to _licenciatura_ degrees (Figure 2). However, there are still teachers without higher education or with a pedagogy degree which is not focused on secondary education, whose share corresponds to 7.6%. Also, states and municipalities selected teachers with distinct profiles, since there was not a full compliance with the national standards for teacher admission. All these teachers were trained in different types of institutions that are practically autonomous to decide about the instructional design of their curriculum.

Louzano et al. (2010) investigated the profile and preferences of secondary school graduates who declared themselves interested in a teaching career in 2005.<sup>4</sup> Only 10% of this group belonged to the top

> 2 _Pedagogical supplementation_ was instituted in 1997 as a provisional act and originally required a workload of 540 hours. Its provisional nature is reversed 2017, and the certification is now recognized in LDB as a valid requisite for teaching. 3 The authors find that Latin American countries are trapped in a low-level equilibrium with low standards for entry into teacher training programs, which are not prepared to produce the set of competences found in high performance educational systems. 4 Based on socioeconomic questionnaire data of the National Examination of High School (ENEM).

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