Releasing distance learning for face-to-face college is bad – 02/23/2023 – Education

The new president of the National Education Council (CNE), sociologist Luiz Curi told the Sheet which is contrary to the authorization, currently in force, for face-to-face colleges to fill up to 40% of their workload with distance learning (EAD).

A new resolution for the use of information and communication technologies in higher education, approved by the CNE, was sent to the MEC and is awaiting ratification by the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). The document goes against the grain of this mix of face-to-face college and EAD authorized in 2019 by the then Bolsonarist minister Abraham Weintraub.

The resolution determines that hybrid educational activities, that is, those that mix face-to-face and remote learning, must take place “on the institution’s premises”.

In other words, it establishes that students and professors are in the faculty building, in classrooms or other spaces, such as laboratories, and that they can use technologies in new pedagogical practices, including to connect remotely with other institutions. The resolution argues that this connection can put students in contact with environments outside the college for classes, lectures, seminars and exchange programs, among other activities.

Textually, the document states that the hybrid process “is not to be confused with the structure of courses offered in the distance learning modality” and that the activities must take place “from the physical space of the higher education institution”, without “being confused with percentages of distance learning activities in higher education courses”.

The Bolsonaro government’s release for face-to-face colleges to fill 40% of their workload with distance learning was a demand from private higher education. With this, the teaching staff can be reduced, as well as real estate costs.

In December 2018, at the end of the Temer government, Rossieli Soares, then Minister of Education, had signed an ordinance determining a limit of 20% of distance learning for on-site graduations, which could be increased to 40% in the case of institutions that had a concept 4 or 5 at MEC, considered of excellence, and which already offered the same course in distance learning format as with these same concepts.

Weintraub revoked this ordinance and released 40% of EAD for all colleges (except for medical courses), regardless of the quality of teaching.

“This is home-based face-to-face education,” he told Sheet the president of the CNE, the body that assists the MEC in formulating public policies and education guidelines. “We don’t think this is good because it harms face-to-face methodologies, it takes the student out of the educational institution like a cork from a bottle”, he criticizes.

Luiz Curi is one of the rapporteurs of the opinion of the new resolution on hybrid higher education. In November, he was elected by the councilors of the CNE as president of the organ. According to the sociologist, “the new resolution goes in another direction, that of inserting technologies without removing the student and professor from the face-to-face institutional environment”.

“We treat hybridism in a different way, which provides for learning with flexible and diversified practices”, he says. “Hybrid teaching is not this mixture of distance learning and face-to-face learning, which is terrible, it disqualifies both modalities”, she adds. “A face-to-face course with 40% distance learning displeases everyone, both the student who wants to stay at home and the one who prefers to be in college. It’s bad for all sides.”

DE GROWTH

The number of new entrants to higher education in Brazil was higher than in face-to-face education in Brazil in 2020. In 2021, 62.8% of enrollments were in distance learning courses, whereas ten years ago, in 2011, they represented 18.4% of the total. .

In addition to this growth, also driven by the pandemic, the Bolsonaro government’s authorization for the distance-learning workload in face-to-face courses has fostered a new market niche, that of so-called blended colleges. The name is used both for distance learning courses with some face-to-face activities and for face-to-face courses with part of the course load at a distance. Depending on the marketing strategy, the same course can be called face-to-face, EAD or blended.

Curi said to Sheet see “with concern” all this progress. He, however, points out that distance learning plays an important role in expanding Brazilians’ access to higher education.

“In the Brazilian population aged 18 to 24, we have only 19.7% enrolled in higher education, and the goal of the National Education Plan is 33% by 2024. We need more students. To criticize distance learning for enrollments would be a contradiction. “

According to him, EAD has the role of decentralizing the supply of higher education in the country. “Enrollments are concentrated in the South, Southeast and Northeast. The North has only 8%, and the Midwest, 7%. This is unreasonable and tends to change with EAD.”

Curi also claims that distance learning is more accessible for those who work. “Enrollments in evening courses have been falling. In 2016, there were 3.9 million, today there are 2.8 million”, she says. “With EAD, the student does not waste time commuting.”

The quality of teaching at distance learning, however, is lower than that of face-to-face colleges.

In 2021, in the Enade (National Student Performance Examination), which evaluates undergraduate students, 6.2% of on-site courses obtained the maximum score (5), while, in the case of remote ones, it was 2.3%. In addition, almost half (47.8%) of distance learning courses had a performance below the minimum required by the MEC (they took grades 1 and 2), while, in the case of face-to-face courses, it was 30.9%.

Curi states that “the legislation needs to guarantee quality, not just expansion”. “If there are flaws in distance learning, they need to be measured and corrected. Eventually, for example, a distance course could be longer than the classroom one.”