Education International for Latin America
REGIONAL COMMITTEE
EDUCATION INTERNATIONAL FOR LATIN AMERICA REGIONAL COMMITTEE
DECLARATION MAY 2021
EDUCATION IN TIMES OF PANDEMIC For the right to public education with a sovereign, state, democratic, Latin American perspective For social dialog to achieve public and state developed digital technologies and safe face-to-face spaces
Education International for Latin America
REGIONAL COMMITTEE
D ECLA RATI O N MAY 2 0 2 1
EDUCATION IN TIMES OF PANDEMIC For the right to public education with a sovereign, state, democratic, Latin American perspective For social dialog to achieve public and state developed digital technologies and safe face-to-face spaces Part I: The response to the pandemic and the management of public policy during this health emergency is an eminently political response. The neoliberal model has no strategies to end the pandemic, but rather to deepen its destructive effects. In many countries, the COVID-19 pandemic is being used as an excuse for curtailing the gains of the working class, while intensifying the concentration of wealth, institutional violence and police brutality. The unions of Education International for Latin America believe that: 1. Inequalities are increasing and are more evident in the face of the digitalization of public services in a world largely excluded from the right to connectivity and in which rich countries monopolize access to vaccines. 2. As of May 2021, of 905 million doses of vaccines administered, only 0.2% were administered in lowand middle-income countries. Market logic makes it easy for pharmaceutical companies to keep vaccine patents as private commodities. 3. The trade union movement in the region has supported preventive social distancing and quarantine strategies to avoid the increased transmission of COVID-19. At the same time, it has demanded that the policies of subsidies, bonuses and access to food baskets be expanded to protect the comprehensive health of all families. The lack of adequate state initiatives means that the lives of millions of adults, children and young people are threatened not only by the COVID-19 virus, but also by hunger and malnutrition. 4. Bonuses and subsidies are key to enabling families to comply with preventive social distancing, mainly in Latin America where 60% of the sources of work are in the informal economy, while 79% of working people in Latin America “work in activities that cannot be done via telework” (ECLAC, 2020). Despite this context, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) considers that subsidies to families and small businesses must “have an expiration date so that they do not become permanent programs” (IDB, 2020).
Education International for Latin America
REGIONAL COMMITTEE 5. Only 67% of the population has any type of internet access, while 40 million households representing 244 million people do not have any type of internet access at all (IICA, 2021). Given this context of digital divide, ECLAC recommends that governments promote a “basic digital basket” to universalize connectivity and digital inclusion. 6. Latin America lost 26 million jobs in 2020 with a total of 22 million people falling into poverty, resulting in a total of 209 million people living in poverty. That same year, 32 global corporations pocketed profits of up to $104 billion (OXFAM, 2021). 7. Despite this reality, throughout the pandemic the people of Latin America have experienced the onslaught of the conservative right—whether from the political sphere in power, or that of the opposition—that lobby to discontinue policies of subsidies and social distancing in favor of freedom centered on commerce and not on the right to health. 8. This conservative right is pressuring the education community to return to the classroom without infrastructure conditions that guarantee the health of students and teachers. 9. The impact of the pandemic has intensified in countries such as Brazil, Peru and Uruguay, where the state has acted from a neoliberal perspective, prioritizing business and economic openness and leaving a vacuum of public management and investment in health and social protection. 10. In April 2021, Uruguay became the country with the highest rate of new infections per day in the world. Despite this, the Uruguayan government is the government allocating the least resources to the population affected by the pandemic (ECLAC). In Brazil, despite the country’s 300,000 deaths from COVID-19, the federal government continues to minimize and deny the risk of contagion. 11. The pandemic has been marked by a new wave of the concentration of wealth. Before the pandemic began, the world’s 2,095 billionaires accumulated (known or declared) private capital amounting to USD$8.037 billion. In January 2021, the capital of this clique of billionaires had increased to USD$11.95 trillion, an amount equivalent to the investment made by all G20 countries in response to COVID-19. 12. This accumulation of wealth has not had a correlation either in progressive tax reforms nor in job creation. 13. Inequality is also expressed in mortality rates due to the virus. In Brazil, black people have a 40% higher mortality rate from COVID-19, while in the U.S. Latino and black people killed by the virus outnumber white people by 22,000 cases. 14. At the same time, there has been an increase in violence, repression and police brutality, as evidenced by crimes committed against defenseless protesters in several cities in Colombia, where civilian personnel have been witnessed shooting at protesters. Such repressive practices have also been denounced mainly in Chile, Guatemala and Honduras.
Education International for Latin America
REGIONAL COMMITTEE 15. In Colombia, violations of the human rights of teachers and threats against trade union leaders persist, without the government guaranteeing effective protection of threatened workers and without any clarification with regards to other crimes against teachers. 16. During the pandemic, the people of the world have again been placed into debt by their governments. In April 2021, the World Bank Spring Meetings confirmed that loans approved by the bank in 2020 increased by 65%, reaching a total of USD$100 billion. In the first half of 2020, eight Latin American countries became indebted to the World Bank by USD$855 million to address the COVID-19 emergency. 17. These loans have been taken out in US dollars, for terms of up to 25 years (BM, 2021) and, like other loans in the history of our countries, although they are paid for by the entire population, they are not conditioned to the strengthening of the state or of public policy. 18. While in Latin America the right wing responds with conservative and undemocratic practices, the government in the USA, the cradle of the neoliberal doctrine, shows signs of directing its domestic policy in a way that is less neoliberal and which takes involves increased state presence and public investment. 19. President Joe Biden has announced a recovery plan focused on progressive taxation, job creation, women’s participation in the labor market, free public education, and union freedom. This speaks of policy opposed to the practices of the neoliberal and right-wing governments of our continent.
Part II: Education 20. In issues related to education, the common denominator during the pandemic has been state responses based on public-private partnerships for the use of technology platforms, digital content and materials for teachers. 21. The private and corporate sectors have positioned themselves as providers of teacher training for virtual educational mediation, standardized educational content and consulting services to ministries of education for virtual and distance management. These trends based on a business and marketing perspective are not new, but they have found in the pandemic a scenario in which they have been able to consolidate their positioning. 22. Teacher organizations prioritize the right to the comprehensive health of all people, and they have made a call to respect and observe social distancing policies. 23. Education unions favor the use of technology in the classroom, as long as this responds to educational processes and complements the role of the teacher.
Education International for Latin America
REGIONAL COMMITTEE 24. However, during the pandemic, many ministerial initiatives based on digital offerings (platforms, applications and digital curricular content) have failed to provide relevance, because there is a digital divide that affects both teachers and students. Up to 46% of school-age children and 42% of those under 25 years of age do not have internet connectivity, while two thirds of the countries “do not attain the download speed requirements necessary to apply digital solutions” (ECLAC, 2020). 25. Although the response based on digital solutions does not guarantee educational continuity and generates new forms of educational exclusion, face-to-face attendance cannot be maintained without intensive improvements in school infrastructure. 26. In Latin America, only 28% of students enjoy adequate infrastructure without overcrowding, while 72% of rural schools do not have water (UNESCO, 2018). 27. Safe school attendance requires immediate investment in school infrastructure to guarantee spaces that allow social distancing, ventilation and access to water. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure safety in school transport. 28. In the context of the pandemic, the right to public education has been maintained through the unprecedented efforts of teaching and administrative staff, families and students. Teaching staff are experiencing an overload of work, combining digital attention with other strategies of imparting education (visiting student houses, dissemination of content via WhatsApp, etc.) and working in emergency conditions. 29. Thousands of teachers are paying with their own money for connectivity data and have gone into debt to buy computer equipment or smartphones. That is, thousands of teachers from the public and private sectors fund their work from their own pockets to try to implement responses based on digital tools. 30. Despite the educational and continuity difficulties that distance education implies during the pandemic, the IDB has lobbied intensively in favor of the hybrid (alternating) and distance education model to be installed even after the pandemic and also for early ages. 31. The hybrid model is a euphemism for an education with little presence of teachers, based on models of “autonomous” student learning and the use of technology (IDB, 2020). 32. Educational reforms towards the hybrid model can increase business and private profit, because they can increase sales in services of teacher training in virtual educational mediation, the development of digital platforms, the development and sale of software, the sale of devices (computers and phones), various consulting services for “external equipment” to governments for the management of the reform, and of course, services for the monitoring and evaluation of the model, and even for the training of parents.
Education International for Latin America
REGIONAL COMMITTEE 33. In 2020, the IDB approved USD$2 million for “technical cooperation” on the design of hybrid and distance education pilot projects that could lead to new loans. The trend towards indebtedness to sustain educational reforms is a fundamental part of the United Nations 2030 Agenda, which recommends financial “collaboration” to increase the USD$149 billion currently invested in education to USD$340 billion by 2030. 34. The pandemic and the union demobilization forced by preventative social distancing has been a context that has favored the curtailment of rights and the deepening of practices that weaken public education. In several countries in the region, there have been budget cuts in education, with teaching positions being frozen, teachers being laid off, and speculation occurring with teacher’s pension funds. The International Labour Organization warned that in the education sector, “the crisis has highlighted the vulnerability of workers with fixed-term contracts and who are not affiliated to any union, as well as of those who do not have other forms of collective representation” (ILO, 2020). 35. This crisis may increase with the promotion of legislation that excludes teachers from educational policy decisions and replaces the presence of the trade union movement with that of other actors in favor of commerce and deregulation, as is currently the case in Uruguay with the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC). 36. Virtual education, limited by the lack of connectivity and the difficulties of face-to-face education in contexts of contagion and heath deficiencies, constitutes realities that pose severe restrictions when thinking about the recovery of good educational practices. It is necessary to resolve these limitations by increasing budgets and by taking measures to guarantee access to the internet as a public right. It is also a priority to reverse the adverse situation of unemployment and poverty that increasingly affects the environment of schools in Latin America.
Part III: Considerations It is untrue that the pandemic affects everyone equally and it is untrue that people can stay at home without the state responding with social protection policies. In this context, the unions of Education International for Latin America consider it a priority for the entire region that: 37. All public and state decisions in this context should be guided from a perspective privileging human rights, the strengthening of democracy and the sovereignty of our people. 38. Social dialog forums must be established and even in quarantine periods, inclusive negotiation and round tables must be convened. 39. Efforts to generate new jobs in the formal economy must be made.
Education International for Latin America
REGIONAL COMMITTEE 40. Policies for social protection, subsidies and access to food must be strengthened. 41. Regressive tax reforms must be stopped and commitment must be made by political and social forces in all countries to progressive tax policies that ensure the distribution of wealth and counter the concentration of capital and tax evasion favoring elites and powerful groups. 42. Police and military violence must be stopped immediately and those responsible for these acts of violence, especially violence directed against leaders of the trade union movement and social protest, must be brought to justice. 43. The monopoly of vaccines held by the countries in the north must be ended. 44. That patents for vaccines combating COVID-19 must be released based on the exceptions observed by the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS). 45. Public funds must be directed to and strengthened for the development of vaccines and medical innovation in Latin America with a sense of sovereignty and regional integration.
In education: 46. Guarantee must be made of access to vaccinations for education workers as priority personnel. 47. Promotion must be made of the development of information technology and educational technology of a public character, that is managed by the state with a focus on regional integration and Latin American collaboration, with the participation of teachers, and which is undertaken in collaboration with public universities. 48. Public and academic research on the curricular and educational appropriateness and relevance of the virtual mode and educational technology must be deepened. 49. Security and privacy policies for data protection in educational technology must be promoted. 50. Legislation must be made to protect working conditions in the virtual mode, establishing time limits, data access costs, and access to equipment (computers, telephones, etc.). 51. Guarantee must be made of the teaching positions necessary for safe face-to-face school attendance. Teaching staff who attend students in person must not be overloaded with simultaneous virtual mode duties. 52. Promotion must be made of free and safe student transport.
Education International for Latin America
REGIONAL COMMITTEE 53. Resources for school canteens in the face of new contexts of hunger and malnutrition must be reinforced. 54. Ministries of Education should survey and monitor the new forms of educational exclusion and generate plans to promote educational inclusion. The teachers of Latin America and the trade union movement in education expresses their solidarity with all the families of workers who have lost their lives in this pandemic. The enormous challenge that we have ahead is to safeguard the lives and rights of our people with increased solidarity and protection of the most vulnerable, with the presence of the states to ensure that this crisis does not take the greatest toll on those who are weakest.
HUGO YASKY President of the Regional Committee of the Education International for Latin America
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