UNESCO: Latin America has a “huge” crisis in digital talent and learning

Latin America has a “enormous” crisis of digital talent and learning, since 8 out of 10 sixth grade students do not have the minimum level of reading skills, warned this Tuesday Valtencir Mendes, head of Education of the Regional Office of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean of the UNESCO at the closing of the LAC ICT Talent Summit forum, in Bogotá.

“Let’s work together, let’s look at the priorities we have as a region because we have a lot of talent and many possibilities to advance, but we need to identify these points of improvement and work together to solve it”Mendes indicated in statements to EFE.

In the region there are 2.5 million people that companies are currently needing in terms of digital talent, said the expert, who added that a “social contract” to improve education and fully achieve the potential that Latin America and the Caribbean has.

More than 500 people from 22 Latin American countries gathered in the Colombian capital for two days to debate the role of education in the development of digital skills, the challenges that exist for digitalization and the keys to promoting an inclusive and equitable economy .

At the meeting, co-organized by Huawei, UNESCO, APC, GIZ and the EFE Agency, 50 experts, senior officials, company executives and academics participated in a total of 8 panels and 10 keynote presentations to debate these challenges.

The problem of education

In Latin America “There is a lot of fragmentation, a lot of rotation of the staff of the Ministries of Education, and with each government we have a new plan of education”Mendes explained in reference to regional problems.

Precisely this Tuesday, the eighth edition of the PISA report was published, which outlines the poor results of Latin American countries in terms of education, whose students had results below the average of the countries of the Organization for Cooperation and Development. Economics (OECD).

“At Huawei we try to do our part in the challenge posed by these new technologies,” said Huawei’s vice president of Public Relations for Latin America, César Funes, who highlighted the company’s programs to close the gender gap and include youth.

All this with the aim of “generate digital trust”: “We want to continue promoting an ecosystem that is totally prosperous for the development of digital talent in the region”said Funes.

Challenges

The summit was also the setting to debate other challenges facing Latin America, such as disinformation.

“In the era of social media and the immediacy of news, it is easy to fall into traps of false information. “The ‘fake news’ phenomenon has proven to be a real threat to our understanding of the world,” warned the editorial director of America of the EFE Agency, Manuel Fuentes.

Faced with this panorama, Fuentes highlighted the need for education and continuous learning of digital skills, which allows “gain a more complete understanding of the issues and avoid falling into information bubbles.”

It was also highlighted that difficulties in basic education are the ‘Achilles heel’ of technological development.

“There are many aspects, such as the issue of two languages ​​and specific special skills, that we must focus on, but the question is how to do it in a population that is not learning the foundations,” said the director of the UNESCO Regional Office of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean in Chile, Claudia Uribe.

Those attending the summit agreed that Latin America and the Caribbean need to strengthen digital talent and promote technological development in a region where talent exists, but is not being promoted.