Brazil’s Ministry of Education on Monday launched the first-ever Sisu+, a supplementary round of its unified university admissions system, offering 9,436 unfilled places across 34 public institutions for the second semester of 2026. The window, which closes on Friday, is restricted to candidates who sat the national secondary exam (Enem) in any of the past three years and had already applied during the regular Sisu 2026 cycle. Applicants may select up to two degree courses, with their best weighted Enem score considered. Viewed from Brasília, the initiative is the centrepiece of a package designed to reduce the number of bespoke selection processes run by individual universities and to raise the occupancy rate in a system that has long struggled with vacant places in less glamorous regions and disciplines.

Not all fields are on offer. Seven courses—including medicine, dentistry, psychology, and aeronautical engineering—have no remaining vacancies this semester, a reflection of the intense competition that fills those slots in the main round. The largest concentration of available places is in the northeastern state of Paraíba, with 1,776 openings, while Piauí offers just 21. The geography underscores a persistent imbalance: flagship courses in coastal metropolises are oversubscribed, whereas institutions in the interior and in less fashionable subjects rely on mechanisms like Sisu+ to avoid empty lecture halls. Meanwhile, the separate Enamed exam for medical graduates opened registration until 29 June, and private colleges faced a Monday deadline to join the second-semester Fies student loan programme.

In India, the Union Public Service Commission released the results of its civil service preliminary examination, with 13,343 candidates qualifying for the mains stage—a slight dip from last year’s 14,161, against 1,016 notified posts. The three-stage marathon, which feeds the elite IAS, IFS and IPS cadres, remains one of the world’s most fiercely contested public-sector recruitment exercises. In Bangladesh, authorities extended by eleven days the online application window for stipends aimed at financially disadvantaged undergraduates in the pass, degree and Fazil streams, now running until 25 June. The Prime Minister’s Education Assistance Trust scheme covers tuition fees and other support, reflecting Dhaka’s effort to keep meritorious students from poor families enrolled as living costs rise.

Away from higher education, the labour market offered its own signals. The southern Brazilian state of Paraná listed 20,240 formal job vacancies, dominated by production-line feeder roles and meat-processing positions, while the Amazonian state of Rondônia appointed more than a thousand newly approved teachers from a competitive public exam that had drawn over 128,000 applicants. These parallel developments, though distinct, point to a broader moment in which governments are using both digital platforms and targeted financial incentives to match supply with demand—whether in lecture halls, examination halls or factory floors.

Analysts in London note that Brazil’s Sisu+ experiment will be closely watched by other large federal systems grappling with similar inefficiencies. If the supplementary round significantly lifts fill rates without diluting academic standards, it could become a permanent feature, further centralising admissions and nudging institutions away from costly parallel selection processes. For now, the immediate test is whether the five-day window can attract enough qualified candidates to justify the administrative effort—and whether the model can eventually be extended to the most coveted courses that currently have no seats left to give.