Objective

This article describes and analyses the characteristics of the expansion of private dental education in Brazil from 1996 to December 2018 and its relationships with public policies and the country’s labour and education market in dentistry.

Method

The study used an exploratory and descriptive quantitative approach involving standardised data-collection techniques from open-access secondary databases.

Result

From 1996 to 2018 there was an overall increase of 315% in dental schools (582% in the private sector and 49% in the public sector). Brazil had 374 dental schools in December 2018, 307 of which were private and 67 of which were public. The 374 schools offered 47,192 admission places, 89% of which were private. In five states, dental education is 100% private, while in another 19 states the private supply exceeds 70% of the total. In the other three states this offer is between 40% and 67%. From 1996 to 2016, the private sector’s share of dental school graduates was 66%. Women represented 73% of Brazilian dental-school graduates in 2016.

Conclusion

Privatisation of dental education in Brazil raises challenges for the development of policies, planning, organisation of care, and structuring of the training process for dentists, as well as the dynamics of the labour market in the health system.