Summary of the 7th Session of the “Conversas à Quinta-feira” debate
State of Education: Are the Schools prepared?
Education was one of the areas most affected by the changes imposed by the pandemic. Inequalities among students worsened, teachers were forced to make an extra effort, the challenge of the domain of digital skills was posed for which many were not prepared. These themes and also the confrontation between paper manuals versus the “digitalization of teaching” were debated, with the important contribution of the invited speakers: Santana Castilho, João Dias da Silva and Margarida Belchior.
”Immersion in digital? Schools are not prepared for this! Most have very old technological “bichavelhos”. All of this is a mirage! (…) The responsibility lies with the Prime Minister who shamelessly lied to the country! He started by saying that schools were going to have the means ... and they are not going to have anything!
Santana CastilhoUniversity Professor
”What the Ministry of Education did not do was to safeguard the conditions (…) that would ensure that there were operational assistants in schools, that there were enough teachers; It announced a program for digitizing and assigning equipment and improving the computer network, and nothing exactly happened!
João Dias da SilvaFNE Secretary General
”With hundreds of young people at home, what happened is that, from one day to the next, we changed an educational reality completely. (…) The principals of the schools found themselves grappling with the management of a new school, a school unknown to all of us. (…) Many of the recommendations of the DGS, however much we want to comply, are impractical in schools!
Margarida BelchiorDirector of CBR
Watch or review this enlightening session of “Conversas à Quinta-feira”, moderated by lawyer Álvaro Viegas.