Schools in João Pessoa: what the public network's Ideb shows

The municipal network reached 5.2 on the Ideb index for early years in 2023, but the state's performance in later years fell short of the target.

Anyone enrolling children in João Pessoa finds a public network split among municipal, state and federal schools, plus an ample private offering. In the early years of elementary school (1st to 5th grade), the municipal network reached a score of 5.2 on the 2023 Ideb, surpassing the target set by Inep and rising from 5.0 in 2021, with the pass rate stable at 94%, according to an announcement by the City of João Pessoa.

The picture changes in the later years of elementary school (6th to 9th grade) and in high school: a G1 Paraíba report on the 2023 Ideb showed that the state did not reach the projected target for these stages, a problem more tied to the state network — responsible for most enrollments in this cycle — than to the municipal one. This means the quality of public schooling in João Pessoa varies considerably depending on the stage of education and the governing network, so it is not possible to speak of a single score for "the city's public education."

For those who want to research a specific school before moving, the Ideb by individual school in João Pessoa is publicly available on the QEdu portal, which gathers official Inep data filtered by network (federal, state, municipal or private) and by stage of education. No specific national evaluation scores for individual private schools in the city were found in the sources consulted, since for the private network the Ideb is calculated on an aggregated basis with less coverage in its disclosure.