Panel SA: Race to release distance courses in higher education worries, says sector

Large and small institutions of higher education have started a race to the MEC to ask for the release of new distance courses, but the euphoria worries because it can compromise academic quality, according to Elizabeth Guedes, president of Anup (National Association of Private Universities), which brings together more of 200 institutions, such as Anhanguera and Estácio.

For her, the MEC (Ministry of Education) should assess the quality of the institution, not the new course.

“You can’t give a license, either for an in-person course or for a distance learning course, for a school that doesn’t have qualified teachers, an adequate infrastructure, a solid platform system. I think the increase in the number of requests will make the MEC stop looking at the course and look at the school you are teaching. That’s what’s important”, he says.

The professor, who is also the sister of the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, defends that the evaluation criteria of online courses be revised, and the evaluators, prepared to follow the new reality.

“If you do distance learning anyway, delivering content in PDF, setting up teaching centers on top of pharmacy, bakery, and the MEC does not carry out the assessment that we need, you run the risk of losing quality”, it says.

Distance learning was widely used during the pandemic and, now, with the cooling of Covid, faculties are moving to accredit new courses in the modality.

According to Guedes, the increase in requests has been very large in small municipalities and in the countryside, where students opt for distance learning courses so they don’t have to move to another city.

She says that the hybrid education system should also remain in the post-pandemic period, because it was understood that some subjects can be offered over the internet.

Joana Cunha with Andressa Motter and Fernanda Brigatti