Innovation and technology: opportunities for a resilient education system

Apart from causing many difficulties for education systems, the pandemic provided an opportunity to test initiatives whose implementation is usually impossible. “There has been a lot of innovation during the pandemic,” explained Fernando Reimers, professor and director of the Global Educational Innovation Initiative at Harvard University in the United States, and guest expert at the Ceibal Foundation Digital Space cycle.

In his speech, Reimers, who was a member of UNESCO’s Futures of Education and participated in the drafting of the Reimagining Our Futures Together report, analyzed the lessons that the pandemic left for education systems, described different case studies of innovative experiences implemented during the pandemic in disadvantaged sectors and highlighted the significance of making use of technology for pedagogical purposes.

He highlighted technology’s evident ability to enable new forms of organization and collaboration that have resulted in new ways of teaching. “There is no doubt that the pandemic placed many teachers at the heart of the innovation process, not as isolated teachers but as teachers in articulation with their colleagues in their own centres and in other centres thanks to the methods of communication that the pandemic has brought them”, Reimers stressed. Along these same lines, the pandemic helped rediscover the power of communication between households, families and schools, and also of partnerships between institutions. Technology empowered schools and enabled them to increase their capacity by joining networks.

An expert in the field of Global Education, Reimers also highlighted the significance of comprehensive education and how the pandemic has brought this issue to the fore while, on the other hand, it has also revealed the barriers that education systems have encountered in adapting to the new scenario. Reimers drew attention to two main barriers: one related to the availability of technological infrastructure, access to devices and connectivity, since it is not possible to use the technology without it; and another associated with institutions and leadership management. In this regard, he stated that coordination between government sectors, or between different levels of government, can help reduce or increase inequalities, and the role of civil society and other institutions (NGOs, universities, private organizations) is especially significant.

Innovations with the integration of technology in vulnerable sectors

For the purpose of ensuring continuity in learning in the first six months of the pandemic, a large number of innovations occurred around the world. In this regard, Reimers, who reviewed 45 cases, many of them focusing on the most vulnerable groups, pointed out that these innovations often occurred in places with severe deprivation.

During the webinar “Innovation and technology: opportunities to build a resilient education system”, he presented three cases implemented in different places (India, Chile and Nigeria) and none of the innovations shared was characterized by the use of high-end or cutting-edge technologies. Instead, they were largely based on the use of the technology available to them but for a pedagogical purpose. “They all started with a clear, educational purpose and with the use of the technological tools both teachers and their students had access to in order to attain those pedagogical goals,” he added.

Ceibal’s role

In his speech, Fernando Reimers mentioned Ceibal, noting that since its inception in 2007 it has been a cutting-edge initiative, and the pandemic allowed it to reinvent itself and come into its own as an innovation agency, as it gave Ceibal the opportunity to articulate much better with the rest of the education system and become an extraordinary partner in developing teacher capacity.

“Becoming an innovation agency rather than a technology promotion agency, where technology is one of the tools for promoting innovation but not the only one, and where innovation is encouraged by clear pedagogical and social purposes rather than by an eagerness to disseminate technology, is an extraordinary achievement in Ceibal’s evolution, and that undoubtedly positions it at the forefront among other similar institutions in Latin America”, said Reimers.