Four unanswered questions about back to school in the pandemic

But, for the educators and experts heard by the report, unanswered questions remain about how to address the gaps and growing inequalities in education, which will be almost entirely the responsibility of local authorities (see more details below).

“The guide gathers technical standards for health and safety and recommendations for social and pedagogical actions that must be observed by members of the school community for a safe return,” says MEC.

“However, states and municipalities must make the decision to return to face-to-face classes in accordance with the guidance of local health authorities.”

The guide is released a few days after the Minister of Education, Milton Ribeiro, said in an interview with the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo that driving back to school and inequalities in access to the internet and equipment was responsibility of states and municipalities. and not from MEC.

According to the interlocutors, Ribeiro’s speech would have exhausted the minister inside the Planalto Palace.

With the guide published this Wednesday, MEC provides guidance on detection and health security measures to be adopted in schools and public transport to schools.

In the pedagogical part, the document says that networks and schools can reorder the curriculum of the remaining academic year 2020 together with that of 2021, depending on what “is considered essential in terms of learning, according to the context of each school, series or class “.

The text suggests “caution”, taking into account “the impacts of isolation on learning”. It also calls for specific measures for students in the final years of primary and secondary school, to ensure that they can move on to the next stage.

The ministry’s guide cites international studies that highlight the low rate of cases and deaths from covid-19 among children and adolescents. “In contrast to this, school closings have clear negative impacts on children’s physical and mental health, as well as on education, development, family income and the overall economy.”

Experts who follow the educational debate (and reality) throughout the country say that the MEC was slow to organize the return to school, since most states and municipalities had already been developing and implementing their own protocols.

In São Paulo, for example, some schools began to reopen this Wednesday for face-to-face extracurricular activities, following the guidelines of the government and the municipalities of São Paulo.

At the same time, for Claudia Costin, director of the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Educational Policies (Ceipe) of the FGV, the MEC protocol can support smaller or unstructured municipalities to carry out their own protocols.

In addition to the delay, the specialists consulted by the report point out at least four points that are essential to take into account when preparing to return to face-to-face classes, at the national level – and, therefore, within the MEC – , and that are absent (detailed) in the ministry’s protocol.

How to Help Teachers Feel Welcome and Reorganize Their Classes?

Although the MEC text cites the impacts of isolation on learning, it does not provide specific guidance on how to emotionally welcome teachers and students, a crucial point in efficient international back-to-school protocols, says Daniel Cara, professor of the Faculty of Education. from USP and member of the National Campaign for the Right to Education.

“This is so that going back to school is no longer a trauma” amid the pandemic, he says.

For Anna Helena Altenfelder, superintendent of the Center for Studies and Research in Education, Culture and Community Action (Cenpec), it is also necessary to give more ammunition for teachers and schools to redo their pedagogical planning, to minimize the enormous challenges of resuming classes in person. .

“We need to help the teacher to work in classrooms that will be very heterogeneous (in terms of learning levels), because the students had very different opportunities during the pandemic. This will require collaborative work between the different grades, and the MEC should encourage research and methodologies in this regard “.

Addressing Inequalities in School Structure and Learning Among Students?

A considerable number of teachers have resisted returning to face-to-face classes in different parts of the country, claiming that their schools lack the physical conditions to guarantee social isolation and to implement biosecurity measures.

“The impact of an accelerated return to school for the low-income population can be overwhelming,” Cara said. “Because the content is recovering. But the impact of an (eventual) death (in the family of students and teachers) is irreversible.”

At this point, the MEC promised to allocate R $ 525 million to 117 thousand schools for the purchase of health security items and to carry out adaptation works to the context of the pandemic.

But the ministry’s guide contains few references to what experts consider a central problem: the fact that the pandemic has seriously accentuated Brazil’s already deep educational inequalities: poorer students and less structured networks had less ability to study than students from Brazil. higher socioeconomic classes and stronger educational networks.

“It is time to create public policies for the recovery of learning, policies that help in the diagnosis (of the different stages of teaching) and in the training and encouragement of teachers” to face this reality, says Altenfelder.

How to resume the bond and avoid evasion?

Another serious effect of the pandemic is the breaking of the link between teachers and part of their students, generating the fear that many of them will stop seeing sense in school and abandon their studies.

A survey conducted in July by Datafolha for the Lemann, Itaú Social and Imaginable Futures foundations with parents or guardians of 1,556 public school students in the country found that, in more than a third of the cases, students found the routine of the remote study. and they were in danger of dropping out of school because of it.

Avoiding this scenario will also require public policy.

“The student did not unlearn content, but learning occurs when it makes sense and when there is a link (between student and teacher), and the challenge of going back to school is to guarantee a new way of learning,” says Daniel Cara.

“With an adequate policy, a good part of the students’ time in school could be recovered, because in general a good part of that time was already underutilized. More and better could be done, but a national plan is needed, which allows us to grow during the trauma (of the pandemic) ”, says the professor.

“But Brazil is not dealing with these issues. Teachers are never listened to in the elaboration of these policies, and it is they who are going to implement them. With that, the question remains whether going back to school is not an adventure.”

How to reconcile face-to-face and distance education?

In general, schools will have to rotate among students attending face-to-face classes to avoid overcrowding in classrooms.

The National Council of Education, an autarky linked to the MEC, approved this Tuesday (10/6) a resolution in which it extends the permit for distance education in basic education until the end of next year. In practice, networks and schools can replace face-to-face classes with remote classes or combine the two.

In this scenario, it is essential to structure hybrid education, which requires logistics and investments, says Claudia Costin.

“The federal government needs to help municipalities in investing for digitization. Home teaching time will continue to exist, and it will be very important that students without resources have equipment and connectivity, ”he says.

On the subject, the MEC text mentions the need to structure hybrid education for final year students, to help them move to the next stage of teaching.

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