Opinion: Education goes far beyond connection

Since the internet “boom” arrived in Brazil, we have seen a series of government initiatives (at the federal, state and municipal levels) with the objective of bringing connections to schools. However, we need to take the next steps and get out of the trap of short-term solutions.

Without evaluating the efficiency, effectiveness and effectiveness of past initiatives, we repeat and pile up uncoordinated and “disconnected” public policies, without corrections and adjustments towards higher medium and long-term goals that endow students with skills for the future.

It is clear that, once again, Brazil is making the same mistake of the past decade of viewing connection in schools as an end in itself, and not as a means to an oriented and structured policy of educational connection.

Undoubtedly, the internet is the shortest means of accessing the stock of knowledge, but it needs to be allied to a national education strategy for development, as was the case with the movement in Asian countries in the 1980s.

Uncoordinated public policies generate waste of energy and public resources without structuring results consistent with the potential for learning and cognitive development made available by internet access. What results in the training of students were achieved with the Banda Larga nas Escolas Project and Prouca (One computer per student program)? To what extent do new school connection initiatives dialogue with or improve these programs?

Will curriculum guidelines be adapted to new ways of learning provided by high-performance internet access? Are our teachers or will they be trained? What skills do you intend to equip students with and what economic and social development goals will they be linked to? Will the impact of 5G on the nature of cognitive skills be considered?

These and other questions need to have clear answers so that we have structuring actions with lasting educational effects and linked to the formation of a virtuous circle.

TekSystems research, “State of digital transformation 2022” reveals the five most critical skill groups of the future: cybersecurity, data analytics, cloud computing, business analytics and artificial intelligence.

According to the World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs Survey 2020” report, the fastest growing professions in the world have one or more of these skills: analyst and data scientist, specialist in artificial intelligence and machine learning, specialist in big data, specialist in marketing and digital strategy, internet of things specialist, process automation specialist, information security analyst, to name a few.

Without adding this scenario, the connection in schools alone loses the real transforming power of the internet in education. The power of educational policy is weakened. And our picture is not encouraging.

A survey by the International Telecommunications Union shows that only 20% of the Brazilian population have basic information and communication technology skills. These skills are minimum prerequisites to be able to enter this new scenario. These are actions of sending emails with attachments, copying and moving files and folders, transferring documents from the smartphone to the computer, among others. Only 3% have more advanced skills.

Research by the IBGE shows that the percentage of children in Brazil who do not even know how to read and write has been growing a lot in recent years. It jumped from 25.1% in 2019 to 40.8% in 2021.

Thus, it is urgently necessary to correct the route of the connected education policy in Brazil or else we will once again be chasing an unreachable future with high costs for future generations.