Thiruvananthapuram, March 17 - A two-member team of top officials of the state education department left for Brazil Saturday to explore possibilities of collaboration between Kerala and the south American country in the education sector by recruiting about 500 teachers from here.

The team comprising M. Sivasankar, secretary, general education department and K. Anvar Sadath, executive director of IT@School Project left for Brazil via Dubai.

They were invited by Mauricio Rands, secretary of government, State of Pernambuco and elected member of the Brazilian National Parliament.

'This is in continuation of the visit of Robert Viana Batista, an entrepreneur and philanthropist from Brazil to Kerala last month. During his visit, he had informed that the Brazil government is striving to bring up the educational standards in municipal schools in Brazil for which they are planning to recruit Indian teachers with Post Graduation in Science, preferably B.Ed to teach Brazilian children,' said Sivasankar.

This project would be financed by the Brazilian government with the support of international developmental agencies like Unesco.

'For that, they require academic support for the programme from the General Education Department, especially from the IT@School Project. The process of identifying B.Ed graduates either through campus placement mode or through direct recruitment has to be co-ordinated by the Higher Education Department,' said Sadath.

In his letter to the officials here, Rands mentioned that the Brazilian federal government will also be part of this project as well as the municipalities where the pilot phase will take place.

'He also mentioned that their immediate need is to bring 100 B.Ed graduates by the end of this coming June and another 400 by the end of this coming December to Brazil,' added Sadath.

The two-member team will visit a few schools in Brazil and also meet up with educational experts there.