Project headed by Prof. Marília Morosini developed in partnership with Uruguayan board
Photo: Release
A project resulting from the partnership between the Higher Education Studies Center of PUCRS (CEES) and Conselho de Formação em Educação (CFE) of the National Administration of Public Education (ANEP), in Uruguay, advanced discussions on the future and challenges of Education 2050. The project was developed in the form of a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), recognized by Columbus Hub Academy.
The idea came out of a UNESCO initiative, which invites the whole society to discuss the future of education, with the year 2050 in mind. Contributions will be analyzed and published in a document on the future of education in a global context.
Coordinated by School of Humanities professor, Dr. Marília Morosini, who also coordinates CEES, and Prof. Patrícia Vieira of CFE/ANEP, the project mobilized discussion groups to reflect upon the contexts of Brazil and Uruguay throughout the month of November. With online meetings, the project included graduate students enrolled in programs in the area of Education (Brazilian context) and continuously-trained teachers (Uruguayan context).
The focus groups shared their common concerns and hopes for the future of Education in 2050. Discussions on the main challenges mostly focused on the advances in the use of technology in all sectors of society, and on the hope that new generations will have the ability to make a critical, autonomous and responsible use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).
The discussions also addressed the need to respect different cultures, the exercise of differences, with an emphasis on the importance of recognizing human capital, supported by collective work, thus respecting the space and the individual characteristics of different people. Another challenge that was observed was the training of teachers into the use of ICTs. Therefore, groups suggested that training should be continuous in an effort to develop new teaching strategies for the needs imposed by a constantly changing scenario.
The role of States was also addressed in the discussions. In the participants’ opinion, States should make efforts to develop public policies that bridge the existing and evident gaps in this pandemic, especially for the use and access to digital technologies, as tools for teaching and learning. Students, families and educators should be given the chance to be in digital inclusion programs to engage everyone into the effective use of digital tools as educational inputs.
The defense of education as a right for everyone, the imperative need for respect and empathy for others and other cultures were also highlighted in the discussions. The groups also addressed the need to promote student autonomy, prepare educators to teach in new contexts, advancing interdisciplinarity and navigating through the limits of conflict resolution inside and outside of the classroom.
“Participants believe that it will be necessary to overcome the limits of knowledge, arouse students’ curiosity, originality and investigative attitude in a pedagogical perspective in which respect and emotions play an important role, with learning through research. It is about teaching from a planetary perspective and building an ethics of humanity that offers a more just and fraternal education”, Marília adds.
