Federative Coordination and Inequality of Provision: Brazil’s Education Policy Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic posed major challenges to federal systems, especially in balancing central and subnational responsibilities in education. This study introduces the Remote Education Program Index (REP Index), a novel metric to assess the quality and comprehensiveness of remote education policies adopted during the pandemic. Drawing on the Brazilian case, we evaluate daily data from all 27 subnational units between March 2020 and December 2021, and show that the absence of federal coordination and the loosening of fiscal obligations led to reductions in education spending and contributed to stark disparities in the quality of remote education programs. Our findings underscore that decentralized education management, in the absence of national guidance and redistribution, can exacerbate existing territorial inequalities during emergencies. The REP Index provides a valuable tool for evaluating remote learning policies and offers broader lessons for federations seeking to build more equitable education systems in times of crisis.