📋 Tender Overview
Millions of people can now access two new and free study tools launched by the Ministry of Education (MEC): MEC Idiomas and MEC Livros, aimed at all Brazilian citizens, especially public school students from across the country and non-specialized language teachers. The MEC Books app is now available for download in the main stores, and MEC Idiomas will be available soon.
What the government is doing is using technology to create opportunities for the population to learn things that we havent been able to for a while. Citizens wont pay anything, its the government that will bear the costs of these apps, so they can read whatever book they want, to learn English or Spanish. You just have to dedicate yourself, have the desire, because the MEC is opening the door to access to education, says the President of the Republic, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
MEC Idiomas is a self-instructional bilingual learning tool from basic to advanced levels. The objective is to be the first digital point of contact between beginning language students and the language of their choice, accompanying their learning to more advanced levels. Initially, 800 English and Spanish classes are being offered, but other languages will be made available over the years.
MEC Books offers almost 8 thousand literary works and aims to expand access to reading and democratize contact with great titles, ranging from renowned classics to contemporary bestsellers.
Among the works available are books by world-renowned authors, such as Clarice Lispector, Ariano Suassuna, Jose Saramago and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as well as titles awarded with the Jabuti Prize. The collection also includes collections of northeastern and Russian literature, and publishing successes, such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, The Hobbit and I Am Malala. The app will function as a digital library, with a lending system and access to works in the public domain and will also have content obtained through partnerships.
MEC Books - The app has almost 8 thousand national and international literary works. There are 1.2 thousand launches and best-sellers, which could reach 224 thousand annual loans and 18,600 monthly loans. There are also 3,600 titles on offer (backlist/longsellers), which can be read by 1.4 million people annually, in addition to a thousand works with unlimited loans. It also features 2,000 works from the public domain and partnership collections, which can be converted into PDF files in the ePub format, improving the digital reading experience. The Public Domain website, launched in 2004, remains active, with a collection of images, audios, texts and videos available for consultation.
To expand the collection, the MEC entered into a partnership with the Fundacao Biblioteca Nacional and is in negotiations with institutions, such as the Academia Brasileira de Letras (ABL), Edicoes Camara, Instituto Mojo and Companhia Editora de Pernambuco (Cepe).
MEC Livros has a series of tools focused on user experience, such as integration with gov.br, personalization of reading, automated notifications and gamification features. The platform also focuses on accessibility, with font and contrast adjustment options, support for people with dyslexia and compatibility with screen readers.
Another highlight is the presence of an artificial intelligence agent (AI) to assist users with questions and reading suggestions, in addition to a panel for monitoring the works accessed.
MEC Idiomas - MEC Idiomas offers English and Spanish courses at six levels, which have four to six modules, with ten to 15 classes in each of them. The APP will have the following tools available: gov.br integration; proficiency test; learning trail (class + reinforcement); test at the end of the modules; conquest; speak and practice; AI agent for support/questions; conversational AI agent; and user notification (automated/mkt).
Using the potential of education networks across the country, MEC Idiomas will have public calls for submissions of content already produced to be adapted to the platform, focusing on languages not yet available on the application.
The application is part of the Idiomas Without Borders (IsF) ecosystem, forming part of an already consolidated bilingual education policy. The partnership allows the offering of specialization courses for the public education network. The offering of IsF courses, which last from 48 hours to three months, takes place twice a year. The aim is to improve proficiency rates and scientific productions. R 1.68 million will be made available per year for the initiative, which will impact 16 thousand students per semester.
MEC Social Communications Office, with information from the Executive Secretariat (SE)
