Education firms Anhanguera Educacional Participacoes SA and Kroton Educacional SA were added to Brazil's benchmark Ibovespa stock index for the period between Sept. 2 of this year and Jan. 3, 2014, exchange operator BM&FBovespa said on Monday.
Brazil has the world's 7th largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with a population of around 195 million inhabitants, distributed in 27 states (more than five thousand cities). The country has a peculiar higher education system, with a relatively small number of public research universities and a large number of private institutions, both philanthropic and for-profit. Although the system has been growing substantially in the last 15 years, the number of young people attending the university has not exceeded 14% of the 18-25 age cohort eligible to pursue university level study. Approximately 6 million students attend a higher education institution in Brazil— 75% of these students are enrolled in private institutions (approximately half of them are for-profit institutions).
At a time when you might have expected to hear the youth of Brazil chanting about the nation’s football team, they called out “Vem pra rua” – “Come to the street” – an invitation to protest against corruption, police aggression and poor public services.