Frei Betto's top-notch lecture at Pedagogy 2021

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 4 (ACN) On the final day of the International Congress ‘Pedagogy 2021’, Brazilian theologian Frei Betto drew a profile of education in times of pandemic and made a clear description of its ups and downs on a global level

The presentation of this brilliant intellectual, close friend of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro and of the Cuban Revolution, and formidable pedagogue, was the best gift to the more than 900 delegates from Cuba and 27 other countries to the 17th edition of these meetings "For the unity of educators".

COVID-19 made it impossible to have a packed hall and hear the audience’s standing ovations, and takes the blame that for the first time in the history of these meetings, initiated in 1986, Pedagogy 2021 was held online.

“The world school system was not prepared to deal with a disease that requires long-time physical distancing and social isolation,” he remarked. “Forced to move from the face-to-face to the virtual universe, education had to resort to technological tools which, due to lack of resources, many students, especially those attending public schools, cannot quickly access.

He also stressed that most teachers were not prepared to teach at a distance, nor were most families prepared to become teachers' assistants and suddenly see their homes turned into schools. Likewise, he mentioned the global crisis and the daily drama of millions of human beings thrown into extreme poverty, inequity, injustice and the already enormous social inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic, and also of the dark sides of distance education, among these, favoring individualism in school work.

By way of conclusion, Frei Betto remarked: "With or without the pandemic, whether classroom or distance learning predominates, the fight against the most serious problem of humanity - social inequality - demands that we all commit ourselves to the permanent struggle for public, free and secular schools. Full-time school education is a universal right that must be guaranteed by the State to the entire population".