A lot of the entertainment is almost the same as in Europe but in Portuguese. We have shopping channels, premium movies, cartoons, MTV, Discovery Channel lots of old movie channels, religion, three sports, and endless regurgitated old serials, CNN (in English as well as Portuguese), Fox News, Bloomberg etc. The similarity is probably because it is the same multinational companies controlling the media. Rupert Murdoch is here with Sky TV, various US corporations and Globo which is the Brazilian equivalent of Murdoch’s News International Corp.

There are some interesting differences.  There are three channels showing live debates in the legislative chambers of the State Government, The Senate and The Chamber of Deputies. There are also two channels which seem to show cattle and horse auctions 24 hours a day. There is no general news and entertainment  station dealing with Just Vila Velha or Greater Vitoria.

One interesting feature is the University Channel. The three local universities have a joint channel where all content is created by them. Each university creates its own content and has several one hour slots each day. The programs are anything from infomercials touting for new students, concerts and recitals, experimental projects by students, university news and productions as part of academic courses in journalism, TV production, music etc.

The other unusual item is the  legal channel which is the house journal for lawyers. It all looks pretty serius stuff with endless discussions of current legal affairs. It does not show trials.

Foreigners are reasonably well provided for. We receive the overseas or news versions of the main TV channel of the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, and Portugal plus CNN and Fox News in English.. TV programs are all dubbed but movies are mostly shown in their original languages and sub-titles.

The Brazilian TV and movie industry is big and they produce a wide variety of programs. A lot of familiar formats with a Portuguese accent are here. Local versions of Big Brother, X Factor, The Apprentice and many others are popular. Soaps are just as important as anywhere else and the current big hit is about an extended family based in both Brazil and India. Churrasco and saris make an exotic combination.  Of course soccer is an obsession here and I  could (but don’t) watch the big matches of the week from a dozen different countries.

So, as with many things, Brazil is much like any other country.

There are similar arrangement at the University where Flavia’s daughter studies, this depends on the course, demand, facilities etc Last year Jana attended in the afternoons and evenings while other students study in the mornings. This has the obvious advantage of using the teaching facilities much more intensively than in Britain. The other advantage is that it allows students to take either morning or afternoon jobs to finance their studies. These hours can certainly help the parents of younger children who want to work part time.

In Brazil there is the system of “Lei do Estágio” or the law that covers the work experience for those in higher education. Students are required to work part time in employment related to their degrees. It is a similar idea to the British “industrial year” but the students work for four hours a day and study during the rest of the day. They receive the minimum wage and insurance cover but no employment protection. This idea might not go down well with British students as the Brazilians do not have nearly so much time for beer, sex and rock & roll.

So far I do not fully understand the system but can see that it works in different ways. I have heard of estagiarios who refuse to do any work at all because they have good family connections. Others seem to work hard and learn a bit about the world outside of academia. No doubt some are treated as a source of cheap labour. The work is supposed to be supervised and relevant to the subject being studied but it is not always easy to meet the requirements of the employer and the university. It seems to be a system that would be worth studying in Britain. Certainly the idea behind the system is excellent even if it does not always work as well as it should.

The other striking difference in education here is the vast number courses for adults. Most civil servants and other public employees have strong financial incentives to study. Most people seem to be doing some sort of course to accumulate more points to enable them to move to the next pay grade. This does lead to a very well educated work force.

The problem is that a lot of the study is totally pointless. Flavia scours the internet for suitable courses. Recently she found an advanced course in Portuguese punctuation and accents (which can be very tricky) which gave credit for 40 hours of study. Being very well educated she and several colleagues signed up and paid for the course and took the tests after a few hours of revision. They passed and the cost of the course will be more than repaid by the salary increase. A few years ago she studied very hard for five years to obtain a law degree. One would think that The Appeal Court might find some way of using the law degree of one of its administrators. She is in the same job as before – but with a higher salary. It seems so wasteful.

We have just come back from Brasilia where we spent the May 1st holiday weekend. As soon as I have time I will write an article about it.