Amaral Cunha, Escola Eleva

Tell us a little bit about yourself

I would say that one of my main characteristics is curiosity, and I am also the kind of person that is always looking for something else. I am very unsettled in many ways, and that is in my personal life and in my professional life. And that relates a lot to the career that I have established up to now – I’ve never really followed a predicted sequence.

Describe your career to date

I was an exchange student and when I came back to Brazil after a year living abroad, I decided that I wanted to have my own independence. So I start teaching English as a second language. It was a side job, but I completely fell in love with education.

But at the time, coming from the family that I came in the northeast of Brazil, it would be pretty hard to say that I was going to go to university to become a teacher.

So then I decided to go to medical school, and I never stopped teaching throughout my six years of medical school plus the year that I did residency. I was always involved with teaching and teaching became my big life passion.

And then I did the DELTA and the CELTA and I decided to live abroad. So I lived in the United States as a visiting professor, and when I was there, I had the offer of coming back to Brazil.

I stayed for 15 years at graduate school, an international school in Sao Paulo, and when I was there, a friend of mine put me in contact with some people who had this idea of opening a premium school in Rio that had all of the characteristics of an international school but was Brazilian. That spoke to me from my heart.

I am the founding headmaster of Eleva, which opened in 2017, and it was acquired by the Inspired Education Group in 2022 [after rapid growth].

What do you think  is driving the growth of the Brazilian K-12 market?

I think when we opened there were basically only three options in Rio.

You would either go to all of the traditional Catholic schools, some vanguard schools that we had in Rio, or you would go to an international school.

We presented an option of being a Brazilian school with all of the characteristics of an international school, so we brought the best of both worlds.

What do you see as the biggest opportunities for international universities looking to engage with Brazil?

With the internet and social media, the world has become much more reachable.

Back in the day when I was a student, even traveling abroad was a big event. Nowadays, everything’s connected. Now, families want to open as many doors as possible.

In the past, it was almost impossible for some families to afford to send students abroad. Now we have a variety of universities.

For universities coming to Brazil, I think a big unique selling point is showing the possibility of students going abroad and coming back to their country and applying what they’ve learned.

 What do you most like about your job?

The fact that we can transform the world, society, and future generations through education.

One of the things that I’m proudest of in this school is our scholarship program. [Students from different backgrounds] are learning from each other.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity