This article analyses the perceptions and experiences of working-class school children and their families with regard to the principle of non-retention in a public primary school in the municipal network of Belo Horizonte, in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Semi-structued interviews were used as the central research procedure in order to apprehend and to comprehend the perceptions of these actors with respect to school non-retention and to how this practice interferes in situations of school failure and success. The conclusion is that school non-retention, according to those interviewed, has been incapable of assuring the right to basic education in that it favours the promotion of pupils without effective learning and generates growing difficulties for their continuity and their absorption by the labour market.
school non-retention; study cycles; school success