In 2025 alone, as shown in the latest edition of the Abrelivros Yearbook, the National Textbook and Didactic Material Plan (PNLD) distributed more than 127 million textbooks to Brazilian public schools, reaching more than 33 million students and teachers throughout the country. This demonstrates the scale and relevance of the program in guaranteeing access to quality education in Brazil. The Literary PNLD should also be considered in strengthening policies for access to books and reading, since it has a decisive impact on the formation of the “fully-rounded reader,” developing vocabulary, cultural repertoire, critical thinking, and the ability to position oneself in the world. It also supports the work of teachers, who use the collections to enrich their own practice.

The most recent data, however, confirms the urgency of the issue. The 6th edition of the “Portraits of Reading in Brazil” survey, released by the Instituto Pró-Livro in November 2024, showed that, for the first time in the historical series, non-readers became the majority of the population: 53% of people had not read even part of a book in the three months prior to the survey. The number of readers fell from 100.1 million in 2019 to 93.4 million in 2024, a reduction of 6.7 million people in just four years, with particularly sharp declines in regions such as the North of the country.

In the field of educational assessment, Brazil continues to face a significant challenge. In PISA 2025, the country obtained 408 points in reading, a result practically stable compared to 2022 (410 points) and still below the OECD average. This stability has extended for more than a decade, with results close to those observed since 2015, reinforcing the need to improve reading proficiency to occupy a central position in the commitments of the next government.

Given this scenario, some of the proposals presented by Abrelivros, CBL, and SNEL include: 

PNLD and PNLD Literário as State policies

  • The National Textbook Program (PNLD) and the Literary PNLD are among the main policies for democratizing access to books, reading, and education in the country. Their continuity and stability must be preserved regardless of changes in government, ensuring that students and teachers in the public school system have regular access to quality teaching and literary materials. Today, the PNLD, including the Literary PNLD, is governed by decree; the new proposal suggests its transformation into law, a measure that will reinforce its relevance and provide greater legal security to a public policy with almost 90 years of history, always for the benefit of students.

 

Sufficient and protected budget

  • The scale and complexity of the PNLD (National Textbook Program) and the PNLD Literary Program require resources commensurate with the programs’ actual needs. It is essential to ensure sufficient budget for the full execution of acquisition cycles and to advance mechanisms that reduce their exposure to cuts and budget freezes, providing greater security for the continuity of these policies. Each cycle of the PNLD and the PNLD Literary Program involves highly complex objects and operations, and the budgets allocated for their execution may be insufficient or subject to cuts throughout the year. This reinforces the need for resources that are compatible with this reality and protected from budget freezes, preventing delays and providing greater predictability for students and schools.

 

Pedagogical autonomy and plurality

  • It is fundamental to preserve the autonomy of networks, schools, and teachers in choosing the materials best suited to their pedagogical projects. The plurality of works, authors, approaches, and content is an essential part of quality education and must be protected against models that restrict freedom of choice or lead to the adoption of single materials. The proposal defends the preservation of the freedom of schools and teachers to choose, among the works approved in the PNLD (National Textbook Program) and the PNLD Literary Program, those most aligned with their pedagogical projects, and believes that the coexistence of these materials and other content offered by the networks does not contradict, but rather complements, the students for their best development.

 

Teacher training and professional development

  • The success of the PNLD (National Textbook Program) and the PNLD Literary Program depends directly on the qualified performance of the nearly 1.9 million teachers in public basic education, according to the 2025 School Census. A survey by the Instituto Profissão Docente (Teacher Profession Institute) points to significant salary disparities between states, with initial remuneration ranging from R$ 4,800 to R$ 13,000 for the same 40-hour work week, while the National Teacher Exam, whose results were released in June 2026, showed that only 25% of those evaluated reached the standard of consistent performance. The organizations advocate that the next government invest in the initial and continuing training of teachers for the full use of PNLD and PNLD Literary materials and promote the updating of teaching careers, currently based on legislation from the 1980s.

 

Copyright in the age of artificial intelligence

  • The regulation of artificial intelligence in Brazil (Bill 2.338/2023) and Bill 4.025/2023, which deals with the use of protected works and the image of authors in generative AI systems, are still under consideration. The organizations argue that any use of copyrighted works for training artificial intelligence systems should depend on prior authorization from the copyright holders and fair remuneration, in line with Article 5 of the Federal Constitution and the Copyright Law (Law 9.610/98). Brazil, a signatory to international treaties protecting copyright, cannot weaken these guarantees without harming authors, publishers, and the production of national educational content itself.

 

Read all the proposals and the full joint letter in Portuguese here.