Dismay as Brazil recalls Science Without Borders fellows

This is a very sad story in which Brazilian inefficiency on the part of CAPES, the federal organisation charged with organising the transfer of young Brazilians to other countries to participate in university courses, plays a major role. One of the main issues is that of inadequate English language skills. CAPES should have ensured that the language skills were adequate before allowing young people to go abroad - that is their job. Equally, neither CAPES nor other organisations provide economically viable English language courses to fill the gap: there are many courses available but beyond the financial means of the majority of students. For those that opted to go to Portugal but were turned down because of oversubscription, they should not have been transferred to an English speaking country without first fulfilling the English language requirements. Once again that was a CAPES blunder. Poor English is the Achilles heel of Brazilian education. Brazil ranks ~45th in the world in the use of English, despite having the 7th largest economy. I am a visiting professor at USP, Sao Paulo, the leading university in Latin America according to the World University Rankings, where I am one of the very, very few professors that teach post graduate research in English, although it has become the norm in many other non-English speaking countries. Absolutely everything that is done in research is evaluated in English by the whole world. Brazil has got to start accepting part of the responsibility for improving English within the universities themselves. Currently, the universities simply point fingers and state that is the task for high schools and not universities. In an ideal world yes, but not in Brazil given the gross deficiencies in public school education. Equally, dumping the English problem abroad is causing a lot of aggravation and costing a lot of money at present. Let us hope that Brazil wins the World Cup by defeating England in the final and then the country can begin to start feeling better about itself.