The Diplomat
The challenges facing the Ibero-American region in a context of full digital transformation in education were the focus of a colloquium this Monday between the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in the presence of Pilar Cancela, Spain’s Secretary of State for International Cooperation.
“More than one billion hours of missed classes have been recorded, which translates into lost competencies,” said Mariano Jabonero, secretary general of the OEI, during the colloquium The value of digital educational transformation in the post-pandemic, held in Madrid and moderated by Spanish journalist Manuel Campo Vidal. Antón Leis, Director of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Aecid); Enrique Iglesias, first Ibero-American Secretary General; and Carlos Abella, Ambassador-at-Large for Ibero-American Summits and Ibero-American Spaces, among others, also attended the event.
This loss of hours, with the classic mechanisms prior to the pandemic would be recovered in eight years, “but with digitization it will be much faster and more efficient,” continued Jabonero. “Digitalization can bring benefits to overcome the world of raw materials in Latin America, in a knowledge society, as it bets on other more qualified skills and innovation capacity,” he added.
For his part, Mauricio Claver-Carone, president of the IDB, warned that, after this pandemic, the Ibero-American region cannot afford another lost decade, but must open up the possibility of “a renaissance, a decade of opportunities, but the question is who benefits from those opportunities”. Therefore, he said, now is the time to rethink education systems towards an education 4.0, taking advantage of the use of technology to improve quality and access. “It is very important that regulatory frameworks open up to increase connectivity to allow that ecosystem to flourish,” she said.
According to Pilar Cancela, “in all actions and in Spain’s cooperation strategy, one of the core subjects is education and digital education.” However, she warned, “telework and digitization are an opportunity, but from the public management we must be very cautious so that it does not mean an undermining in the conquest of rights”.
At the end of the meeting, the secretary general of the OEI and the president of the IDB ratified an agreement signed by both organizations last May, which lays the foundations for a regional project that will focus on the digital transformation of education in Ibero-America. Entitled Education for the 21st Century: thriving, competing and innovating in the digital era, the project aims to contribute to the development of hybrid education models so that countries can ensure educational continuity, as well as overcome the challenges exacerbated by the pandemic in terms of gaps in access, quality and educational relevance. In this sense, the two organizations hope to consolidate the processes of digital transformation of the Ibero-American systems, by supporting inter-ministerial dialogue and the implementation of hybrid educational pilots in the region.
