From schooling to adult education: transition and persistence among young people in Bahia, Brazil

Adult secondary education has become an increasingly important pathway for young people whose schooling has been interrupted, yet little research examines how these transitions are shaped by contemporary education governance or how persistence is sustained under conditions of social and institutional vulnerability. This article investigates transitions from regular secondary education into adult secondary education (EJA) in Bahia, Brazil, drawing on semi-structured interviews with students and focus groups with teachers in three public schools. Transitions are conceptualised as structurally mediated pathways shaped by the interaction of biographical disruption, institutional arrangements, and governance logics regulating age–grade progression and system performance. The analysis shows that persistence is not an individual attribute but a relational and institutional achievement, dependent on recognition, pedagogical flexibility, and material support. While EJA functions as a mechanism of educational repair, it also operates as a regulatory space through which education systems manage irregular trajectories produced by structural inequality. By locating persistence within institutional mediation and governance arrangements, the article extends lifelong learning theory beyond participation frameworks towards a systemic understanding of sustained educational engagement in accountability-driven education systems.