Opinion – Pedro Hallal: The return to classroom classes at public universities is urgent

During the Covid-19 pandemic, universities went months without in-person classes in an effort to help fight the coronavirus. Teaching was adapted to a remote model.

But universities have done much more than that…

When alcohol gel was lacking in the country, universities mobilized and produced gel alcohol to help the Unified Health System and the neediest populations.

Many university hospitals served as a reference for the treatment of patients with Covid-19.

Brazilian universities produced huge quantities of masks and distributed them to the Unified Health System and to the poorest populations.

Brazilian universities conducted scientific research on vaccines, on medicines, on the spread of the virus, on all matters relevant to a better understanding of the coronavirus.

During this pandemic, many of us, servants of Brazilian public universities, waged a gigantic battle against those who insist on attacking science and universities.

During this pandemic, we put our lives at risk to defend that science and education are assets of the Brazilian people and, therefore, must be valued and adequately financed.

During this pandemic, we dialogued daily with the population through the media and social networks, breaking the walls that separated the Brazilian population from universities.

Now it’s time to get back to work, catch up on the calendar, and look ahead. Universities have reached out to the population like never before in this pandemic. The Brazilian population is ready to defend universities the next time cuts in resources are announced. The Brazilian population is ready to fight alongside teachers for fairer salaries. The population is ready to defend the universities because they will always remember that, when they needed them most, the universities were on the side of the population to face the coronavirus.

Precisely for these reasons, the posture of some universities of not having resumed in-person activities is mistaken, and the posture of some of them to plan to maintain remote teaching in the first half of 2022 is almost ridiculous. There is no scientific reason for universities keep remote teaching next year. Vaccine was offered to all university servers and students. There was time for universities to prepare for this resumption. By keeping classes remote, university professors set a bad example for the Brazilian population.

We have always said that governments and the population should listen to science. Now it’s time for universities to listen to science and resume classroom classes.