• Francesc Pedró detailed aspects of the report “COVID-19 and higher education: From immediate effects to the day after. Analysis of impacts, policy responses and recommendations”, in a colloquium organized by CEDER ULagos and IESED-Chile.

On August 5, the director of theUNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC), Dr. Francesc Pedró, presented via Zoom, details of the report prepared by the entity “COVID-19 and higher education: From immediate effects to the day after. Impact analysis, policy responses and recommendations”.

The doctor in Comparative Education from the National University of Distance Education of Madrid presented at the colloquium “COVID 19 and Higher Education System: what impacts, what responses from our universities?”, together with the academic University of Playa Ancha and IESED-CHILE Researcher, Dr. María Angélica Oliva and the academic of the Universidad de Valparaíso, former Rector, former executive vice president of the Council of Rectors of Chile, Dr. Aldo Valle.

The meeting, organized by theCEDER of the ULagos and theIESED-Chile, was moderated by the academic and director of the Santiago Campus of the Universidad de Los Lagos, Dr. Marcel Thezá, who said that “our universities are not entities that are disconnected neither organically nor vitally from the political, historical and institutional moment in which it corresponds to us to develop. From this perspective, it is absolutely reasonable that this pandemic has effects that it is necessary for universities to interpret, assimilate and install as conditioning factors of their institutional work.”

On the other hand, he stressed that in Chile “we also have a political and cultural demand agenda; We are on the verge of reasonably resolving as citizens what kind of society we want to build, we are initiating a process of transformation of a constitutional nature, therefore, there is also a significant challenge from universities.”

In this context, he said that “we not only have to think about the effects that a pandemic has on our university system but also think about the effects that this has from the point of view of the whole of our society, of the space where we should live. And in the Chilean case we also have a responsibility from the perspective of contributing in a citizen and reasonable way to adequately accompany a process that seeks to put into perspective the society in which we want to live.”

Report

In his presentation, the Dr. Pedró pointed out that the report prepared by the IESALC -of two editions- aimed to foresee scenarios in the short, medium and long term that universities in the region could have as a result of the pandemic.

“We wanted to analyze the actions that the pandemic was having in the short term in the march of universities, but also what policy responses at national and institutional level are being generated and propose some recommendations thinking of a future, perhaps not too distant, where we can consider going back to the classroom,” he said.

Regarding the effects in the short and medium term, he pointed out that “we are realizing that, as happened in other opportunities of serious economic and political crises, at the moment what we are seeing is that there will be a significant loss of momentum and demand, In other words, there will be many students who either because they are technologically disconnected or because the context in which they live, let us call it the cost of opportunity that will have for them to continue to go to college, will be difficult for them and their families to bear, and therefore, in the short term, they will no longer return to university.”

He added that “we will have difficulties to address those students who do not regularly follow the proposals of pedagogical continuity that are offered to them. In average terms for the region we estimate the immediate losses at 30%.”

Faced with a possible relapse or rebound of the health crisis, Dr. Pedró said that “in reality it does not have the appearance of being something that will come suddenly within a few months, but rather we have outbreaks here and there constantly. Inevitably we are going to have to live with openings and closures (…) and for possibly several months, maybe years. If we do not get a vaccine in the immediate future, we will live in a hybridization that will not be the result of an internal reflection of the universities about the advantages of hybridization but will be the imposition of the realism of the contingency in which we will have to live for a long time”.

At the same time, he clarified that “I greet this hybridization with great happiness but I also want to highlight the importance of face-to-face attendance for the young generations; The training experience in higher education is not just a teaching and learning experience, face-to-face learning is part of the experience and is probably the capital or nuclear element.”

Likewise, the director of IESAL-UNESCO emphasized two important principles regarding a possible reopening: First, “the pandemic should not be a brake on all the efforts that have been made politically both at the governmental and institutional levels, so as not to leave any student behind.”

“The second thing is that although this emergency situation was totally lack of planning without adequate resources, the truth is that university students like us should consider it as an experiment, poorly designed if you will, but an experiment from which perhaps we can draw some interesting lessons about what is working for the improvement of the quality of university delivery, and what not, and for what reason,” he emphasized.

Comments

For her part, Dr. Oliva, said about the report that “everything that accompanies it and the people who elaborate it, are perfectly inclined in the reparation policy in which I have been working; They talk about recovery and I talk about reparation but I think they are variations of the same theme.”

In this context, she indicated that “I work from the ambivalence of the voice ‘repair’ (…) The first thing the report does is that: these are the data, these are the facts, these are the situations, but it is a phenomenon, there are things to discover. And on the basis of that reparation comes the second aspect of the reparation policy which is how to “act”; Act accordingly, take charge, redress and basically one of the main devices to act is human rights.”

In conclusion, she maintains that the report “is finally declared, and this in my opinion is very beautiful, as a document in the works, that is, it is in continuous preparation; That is deeply democratic because it opens up the report to anyone who has something to say.  I feel that it is possible to participate in this report from what everyone knows. It is not written to be kept on the virtual or physical shelves of the IESALC library because in its imperative to repair it provides knowledge forged in the pandemic so that when evaluating its impacts and its effects on higher education, adequate strategies for recovery are defined. “

Finally, Dr. Valle stressed that the report “is very accurate to its call; There is an analysis of the impacts, of the policy responses that would be expected to be, and of course some recommendations that I think are very suggestive and relevant.”

In this way, he said, “I welcome the elaboration of this evaluation and this prospection (…) However, being done at the beginning of this critical process that we are experiencing, rigorously accounts for the transversal impacts it has and is having among the actors and also accounts for the necessary responses that will have to be given both from the point of view of public policies and institutions”.

Likewise, he warned that in the current scenario, “the crisis has a much more difficult, heterogeneous and complex management, and therefore we still do not have clarity to glimpse some certainties about the effects it will have in the medium and long term.”

Finally, he remarked that “there are some critical manifestations in the method and contents of current education; an education without illustration and then it is an educational challenge that in my opinion requires answers to which we should dedicate ourselves to its search, its conversation and its discussion on the occasion of the disruptive impact that the pandemic has had on education”.

The report “COVID-19 and higher education: From immediate effects to the day after. Analysis of impacts, policy responses and recommendations” can be downloaded at the following link: http://www.iesalc.unesco.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/COVID-19-ES-130520.pdf The colloquium “COVID 19 and the Higher Education System: what impacts, what responses from our universities?, sponsored by the Association of Regional Universities (AUR), can be reviewed in full at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/CEDERulagos/videos/1380391552159097