Elisa Martins
Jornalista, especial para a Yvirá
Elisa Martins
Jornalista, especial para a Yvirá
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025| n°.4 | Obstacles in teaching and teacher training persist, but the advancement of AI technologies and algorithms, the success of the Math Olympiad, and the new federal government decree help highlight the interest and national importance of mathematics, says Marcelo Viana, director of the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics
PHOTO: IMPA
The Brazilian Math Olympiad, OBMEP, is a pioneering initiative and had a record number of applicants this year. What is the reason for this increased visibility?
MARCELO VIANA: More than 23 million children participate in the Olympiad. There are 18 and a half million in the traditional Olympiad, from sixth grade onward, and 5 million in the junior Olympiad, aimed at the early years. The Olympiad reaches the entire country and opens several possibilities for the children who participate. The first is to have fun with mathematics, an idea that is not so common. But children enjoy participating, with their successes, a little less with their failures, with the satisfaction of solving a problem they didn’t know and finding a wonderful solution. They can be rewarded with medals. And even for their professional future. Several public universities already use performance in knowledge Olympiads in the undergraduate selection process. In the undergraduate program at the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), 80% of the slots go to medalists in knowledge Olympiads. So, there are also incentives of this kind for participation. But the Olympiad’s success dates back even before these incentives, because it brings mathematics to everyone in a playful way, more focused on reasoning. It’s a counterpoint to the routine, sometimes boring, presentation of mathematics in the classroom. And the Olympiad gained the support of authorities, was no longer restricted to public schools, and became even more successful when we opened participation to private schools. And, again, because of the satisfaction of having contact with a different kind of mathematics.
What does this impact indicate about the current state of mathematics in Brazil?
MV: It’s a good time. The President of the Republic has just signed a decree launching the “National Commitment to All Mathematics”. With this, the federal government commits to the quality of mathematics education through a series of joint initiatives. Evidently, with state and municipal schools, which have most students. This reflects, on the one hand, the government’s concern about this issue, but this concern doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s also a response to the educational efforts of various actors, aimed at raising awareness of the importance of mathematics in society and public authorities. It’s not just a matter of doing well on the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) test. It’s a matter of national development. IMPA plays a role in this ongoing awareness-raising effort. Last year, the Itaú Foundation published a study on the impact of mathematics on the Brazilian economy. The study showed that 4.6% of GDP is produced by professionals who use mathematics intensively. And this figure, which already represents a significant amount, is still far below what is observed in other countries, where the same rate reaches up to 18%. We need qualified professionals, trained in mathematical tools to generate wealth, development at various levels, security, energy transition, etc. All of this involves mathematics. Therefore, improving mathematics education is also a strategic issue for national development, sovereignty, and growth.
Does the current advance in the development of new technologies, including artificial intelligence, also somehow contribute to sparking greater interest in mathematics today?
MV: I’m sure it makes sense. The presence of mathematics is visibly growing in our daily lives, in the generation of wealth, but also when we consider how much our lives today depend on decisions made by mathematics. There’s a documentary called “Counted Out,” which emphasizes precisely this aspect. There’s a mathematics in our lives that has to do with doing math, going to the market, going to the grocery store. But nowadays, decisions are being made by mathematical tools, by algorithms that affect all our lives, in terms of employment, university placement, whether a loan application is approved, health insurance, etc. The presence of these tools in our daily lives has reached a completely different level. And this makes the issue of access to mathematical knowledge more critical, even from a democratic perspective. The message is that mathematics is power. If you don’t have it, someone will use it against you. If you don’t have it, you’re vulnerable. And this can be said at the individual level, but also at the national level. Countries that don’t master these new technologies and tools are vulnerable in an increasingly competitive world.
While we experience the influence of this rapid emergence of new mathematical tools, teaching math remains a challenge, especially in the early years of school. Brazil’s poor performance in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is a recurring example. What mathematics explains this?
MV: The PISA reflects the reality of an educational system that has grown significantly, in a disorganized manner, and suffers from fragmentation. Our federal structure doesn’t help in this regard, because it creates very different standards. According to information from the Ministry of Education (MEC) itself, about half of our municipal departments are unable to offer a quality elementary school because they are small municipalities, with few resources, and lacking expertise. There are serious deficiencies in teacher training. The poor performance in the PISA stems from all these accumulated problems. And resolving such a major issue in a country the size of Brazil is not simple. What I like about the “National Commitment to All Mathematics” is that the Ministry is willing to create quality assessment standards, in a participatory and democratic way, in dialogue with the state and municipal levels. Furthermore, it provides financial and technical support for schools that wish to join the “National Commitment to All Mathematics”, in exchange for achieving a standard of improvement in children’s learning. I truly hope it succeeds and that it is accompanied by other aspects, such as improved teacher training, key elements in the educational process. It would also be beneficial to adjust the curricula, particularly teacher training, which faces challenges both in undergraduate programs and in the training of future early-grade educators, who typically lack specific training in mathematics.
When we created the Olympiad for the early grades, we had and still have in mind these early-grade students, but also teachers, because both need user-friendly access to mathematics. We need to devote more attention to this segment. Although the SAEB (Basic Education Assessment System) assessment numbers in Brazil are better in the early years, my interpretation is that this isn’t because we’re better at math in the early years. Rather, at this stage, we haven’t yet done the damage we’re capable of, and we’re benefiting from a principle I firmly believe in: we’re all born loving math. What determines whether we become friends with math or terrified of it is our early years’ experience. This begins even before entering school and becomes more pronounced. A good early childhood experience with someone who enjoys math, who doesn’t instill a fear of it, and who continues this throughout school, is crucial for someone to see math as part of life, like any other activity, even if they don’t pursue it as a career later.
Why does this image of math as a “bogeyman” persist? Just like the idea that only people who seem to have a natural aptitude for it, from a young age, excel at math?
MV: Schools play a fundamental role in this. Often, with inadequate training, teachers simply reproduce their own prejudices about math, because not everyone who teaches math enjoys the subject. And it’s a huge challenge. Why does a young child like math? Because they understand its purpose. My children learned fractions by playing at home. I once asked my son if he preferred a quarter slice of pizza or two quarter slices. The funny thing about the question is that he was seeing the options in front of him and immediately realized his dad’s trickery. It’s easier to do this when the child is young because the math we teach is more concrete, closer to reality, like when we teach numbers to count toys, etc. As math becomes more abstract, work becomes more difficult. A colleague once told me that being a math teacher is almost like an entertainment profession. You must keep the class’ attention, show the connections between what you teach and concrete things. We don’t provide enough rich training so that a teacher who goes into a classroom to teach square roots can explain to a child what they’re for. Hence, we have a vicious cycle of teachers who don’t understand why they learned the math they’re going to teach. We also need motivated teachers. They can’t be teachers who have 70 hours of class time per week. In general, our academic system lacks incentives. I believe these are factors that can be changed. And we have no choice: it’s this or we’ll be a second-rate nation in the new century.
Is the role of interdisciplinarity in the development of mathematical skills something that is given little or less consideration than it should be in this effort to improve teaching and foster greater interest in mathematics? For example, the influence of good reading performance on comprehension, or an association between music and mathematics?
MV: Absolutely. It’s one of the reasons I’m a bit wary of this whole “Exact Sciences or Humanities” thing. It means someone splits themselves up and says only one part is worthwhile and decides which half of the knowledge is relevant. I believe in a holistic education, encompassing artistic, cultural, and reading horizons. All of this leads to a much richer way of learning, in addition to helping motivate. But, again, it’s important to consider the conditions of the school and the teacher. How can a teacher with inadequate and incomplete training, in a classroom often in poor material conditions, adopt this approach? No, they won’t. At the end of the day, they’ll end up just teaching Bhaskara because it’s in the curriculum and they must teach it because it’s going to be on the ENEM (National High School Exam).
And what about the representation of women in mathematics? Are they truly occupying their places? What is the proportion of women today at IMPA or the Olympiad?
MV: Female participation is increasing, albeit slowly. And there’s a classic pattern that it decreases with seniority. Starting with the Olympiad, female participation is 50%. Then, in the second phase, which the top 5% in each school advance to, they also represent about half. This, in itself, shows that mathematics is, indeed, a woman’s thing. But when we move to the medals, which is a very small group, averaging 6,500 people per year, a strange phenomenon occurs. Among sixth- and seventh-grade students, girls account for 30% of the medals. Among eighth- and ninth-grade students, they account for 20%. And among high school students, they account for 10%. In other words, the same students, the same female students: as one moves up the educational system, the percentage of female medalists drops year after year, always. There must be sociocultural factors that somehow work to discourage female participation and competitiveness. Another strange fact is the female dropout rate in the second phase. The Olympics has two phases, the first taking place at school, while the second taking place outside, in application centers. There’s already an expected dropout rate. We then conducted an analysis based on the score a person, male or female, received in the first phase to determine the likelihood of them attending the second phase. Common sense would dictate that the better the score in the first phase, the more excited they’ll be to attend the second. For boys, this is true. But for girls, it’s not. Although the theoretical probability is higher than girls with the best grades will make it to the second phase, they don’t.
Brazilian researcher Diana Moreira, who studies at Harvard, conducted these studies and told us that this isn’t the only context in which high-performing women are somehow inhibited by this. There’s no scientific theory or evidence to explain it, but it’s important to be aware that there are several barriers facing women. We need to strive to level the playing field, because it’s not fair. Sociocultural issues aside.
How could this be done?
MV: We’ve had a project since 2019 called “IMPA Olympic Girls” that aims to address this problem in basic education. We work with students from 20 public schools in Rio de Janeiro and neighboring municipalities. We plan a year-round program of math, robotics, field trips, etc., to reinforce that they are, indeed, welcome in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Many students later end up pursuing science. They feel empowered. One of the project’s activities was a visit to Casa Firjan, a branch of the Federation of Industries of the State of Rio de Janeiro. We passed by a workshop with 3D printing machines, laser cutting machines, etc., and one of the girls kept taking pictures. Someone asked her to leave and continue the visit, and she said, “No, I’m going to photograph everything now, because I know I’ll never go into a place like that again.”. Imagine that. Today, she’s studying chemical engineering. She’s back and will visit places like that many more times in the future. So, there’s a gender issue combined with socioeconomic deprivation, as well as racial issues. It’s a huge job to be done. And it’s not just about telling the world to respect women’s rights. It’s also about telling girls, like that one, that they are not outcasts, they are not frauds, and that they can do it too.
