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Latin America has a very serious problem: the majority of its young people do not have sufficient knowledge of language, science and mathematics, according to the latest PISA report. These foundational skills, as they are known in the educational field, are considered the basic tools for thinking independently. “If we do not master them, we intuitively tend to accept what is based on our beliefs without processing them,” says Renato Opertti (Montevideo, 62 years old), president of the Advisory Council of the Organization of Ibero-American States and an expert in education at UNESCO. For Opertti, this problem would partly explain the growing democratic disaffection among young people in the region, where on the other hand security colonizes the debate on public policies. “It is believed that everything is a matter of more repression, forgetting that the educational foundations are very bad,” he emphasizes.
Opertti welcomed América Futura to his home in Montevideo to talk about his book On educating and learning for better futuresthe last of four post-Covid essays he wrote to provide ideas and proposals for educational transformation in the region. “Education has to establish a new civilizing mode, because today it is more embedded in maintaining unsustainability, associated with climate change and the loss of biodiversity, than in challenging it,” says Opertti, who also coordinates the Unesco Chair of Hybrid Education at the Catholic University of Uruguay.
Ask. You propose to transform education, for what purpose?
Answer. The main purpose of education is to form free and autonomous beings with the ability to take their own position, who are able to handle the foundational literacies: language, science, mathematics. Education has to train students in a universalist humanism and is a tool for societies to achieve higher levels of social justice and redefine their relationship with nature. Another neglected aspect is that of an education that brings us together with our spirit, that has no difficulty in discussing human contradictions.
P. What is the main challenge that Latin America faces in achieving them?
R. A very serious problem is that the absolute majority of 15-year-olds do not have sufficient knowledge of language, science and mathematics, according to PISA/OECD assessments. The priority is to achieve a qualitative leap in these learnings, because without this base we are mortgaging the future possibilities of several generations. In addition, it is a wake-up call as to whether this does not imply undermining the foundations of democracy.
P. In his book he suggests that there is a close link between the democratic disaffection that exists in the region and these meager results in education.
R. There are studies in Latin America that show that a worrying proportion of young people is willing to “sacrifice” democracy If there is economic growth, why do we emphasize foundational literacies? Because they are the tools for thinking. If we do not master them, we tend to intuitively accept what is based on our beliefs without processing them.
P. What went wrong?
R. One of the major problems in the region is the very low perception that its political and social elites have of the value of education for inclusion, coexistence and democracy. Security colonizes the debate on public policies, it is believed that everything is a matter of more repression, forgetting that the educational foundations are very bad. Education is not a priority on international agendas: only 2% of international cooperation is allocated to education. On the other hand, we have an educational system with its actors tense in ideological discussions without putting emphasis on what is fundamental.
P. She claims the active role of the educator as an agent of change. What concerns do, for example, a teacher from the Argentine countryside share with another from Guatemala?
R. For an educator, the greatest satisfaction is to help students develop their potential, their talent, their creativity. Today, educators feel that this possibility is blocked, on the one hand, by an educational system that generally does not provide the necessary support and, on the other, by complicated relationships with families. Often, educators feel they are in the dock: accused by the educational system, by families, by politics. I do not mean to say that teacher training does not need to be profoundly changed.
P. Is it common throughout Latin America?
R. This happens in Latin America, but not so much in other societies. In Nordic countries, for example, this siege does not exist because a fundamental principle is fulfilled: mutual trust between educators, students, educational center and community. Relationships of trust generate a more fluid education, less hampered by confrontations. It is not that there are no conflicts, but there is a common basis that everyone respects and it has to do with the professional prestige of the educator, something that we have lost in Latin America.
P. He points out that humanity is at a turning point in reference to the unsustainability of the predominant lifestyles and the unlimited exploitation of natural resources. Has education been functional to this unbridled capitalism that he describes?
R. Education has not succeeded in training the new generations in values and behaviours that would allow us to reverse this model of exploitation of nature. That is why education has to establish a new civilising mode, because today it is more embedded in maintaining unsustainability, associated with climate change and loss of biodiversity, than in challenging it. Education has to recover the sense of emancipation of people, giving them the tools and knowledge to challenge a capitalism that does not consider the relationship of interdependence between humans and nature. Whether or not education reproduces this model is a central debate, but it is often lost because the discussions are monopolised, for example, by technologies, in a path of “techno-solutionism”.
P. How to approach the use of digital technologies in the classroom?
R. First, by understanding and prioritizing them as a support tool in the teaching, learning, and evaluation processes. Second, by studying their suitability for specific educational purposes, because one of the problems is that they have not been designed for educational purposes. We have to ask ourselves how technologies add value to the irreplaceable relationship between student and educator. Third, we must be clear about ethical issues, developing in students the ability to question technologies. Artificial intelligence can be a support to the extent that we enhance human intelligence.
P. Researcher Maryanne Wolf talks about “recapturing student attention” and the importance of deep reading training. How can we do this in times of digital immediacy?
R. There is no education without attention, and attention implies depth. The Global Education Monitoring Report 2023 refers to studies showing that when a student is in class and receives a notification
from an app, it takes 20 minutes for him or her to return to paying attention. The presence of digital technologies cannot be at the expense of print reading. If we want a more democratic society and more vigilant citizens, as Wolf points out, we need students to understand the texts they read.
P. Her work reflects the importance of hybrid education, which combines in-person classes with online training. It is a challenge, because the pandemic has revealed the deep digital divide that exists on the continent.
R. Perhaps Uruguay is the Latin American country that is best positioned to universalize hybrid education, because it has managed to universalize access to technologies in primary and secondary education, with free educational platforms and resources. But it has not done so yet. Moving towards hybrid modes implies a very strong investment by the State in guaranteeing what UNESCO calls the right to free connectivity in education. Without this, hybrid modes reproduce inequality and increase social gaps.
P. This is precisely the most unequal continent on the planet, with marked social and territorial segregation. What consequences does this have on education?
R. Because of this segregation, education is increasingly separative. It has to do with the separatism that comes from society, but also from the educational system. When we separate students into technical or secondary education without communicating vessels, the system ends up reproducing the segregation that exists outside. Nordic societies are more egalitarian and inclusive because education transmits this and does not generate differentiated circuits. We must think of education by age cycles, from three to 18 years, without interruptions, integrating formal and non-formal learning spaces. The traditional distinction between primary and secondary education is obsolete.
P. This means revolutionizing the current educational model.
R. Education is based on a fixed scheme of content, instruction time, and methodologies, when it should be the opposite. An education that is flexible changes the starting point. Because education that does not adjust to the needs of each student penalizes the poorest, who have no other way to compensate for the deficiencies of education. Partly for this reason, in Latin America we have the problem of students being expelled from secondary education.
P. He calls it expulsion, not abandonment or desertion.
R. This expulsion has to do with the inability to address the diversity of each student and to impose a model that ends up being highly regressive. Teaching and learning methodologies must be balanced and integrated to achieve an education that listens attentively to each student. It is a paradigm shift that implies understanding education as an intergenerational issue that goes back and forth.
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