Basic education is the ‘Achilles heel’ of technological development in Latin America

The difficulties in education basic are the ‘Achilles heel’ of the technological development of Latin Americasaid this Monday experts gathered in Bogotá where they advocated promoting the improvement of basic skills and then developing “specific special abilities”.

“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.

The representative of the UN organization, who participated in the panel ‘Preparing for the future, in the context of the explosion of artificial intelligence’ of the LAC ICT Talent Summit, expressed her concern about the fact that students in the region have difficulties with basic skills.

“We have been measuring what students in the region have been doing for 30 years (…) and what we are finding is that approximately 50% of third and sixth grade children do not reach the minimum level of competencies in these subjects”said Uribe.

The expert also stated in the talk – moderated by the deputy editorial director for the Americas of the EFE Agency, Raquel Godos – that this is not the only problem facing the region, as there are also other difficulties related to access to technology.

“We have large pockets of poverty in our region that also tend to mainly affect populations that are lagging behind”said Uribe, who added that “If you want to equalize the entry level of the population, you have to focus on those disparities that our region has.”

At the LAC ICT Talent Summit forum, held in Bogotá and co-organized by Huawei, UNESCO, APC, GIZ and the EFE Agency, experts and government officials from 22 Latin American countries will talk this Monday and Tuesday with directors of technology companies such as Huawei and other organizations , including media.

The lack of a second language

Huawei’s vice president of Public Affairs for Latin America, César Funes, regretted that in the region there is no “second language penetration” and called to promote the learning of English.

This, in the opinion of the Minister of Youth of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Féliz, is key because the second language not only opens doors to young people in his country but also abroad.

He added that it goes hand in hand with strengthening the teaching of topics to children from a young age, because “no one can like what they don’t know” and that is why many scholarships related to technology go untapped.

“In this new era of digital transformation, which represents a transcendental era (…) we as a region must navigate together in the search for a solution to many problems, the challenges when talking about technology”said Feliz.

Evolve

The deputy director for Digital Skills in Colombia, Constanza Engativá, stated for her part that the country’s educational system “needs to evolve, rethink some methodologies, especially because knowledge is always the same.”

“What we are transforming is the means of transmission of that knowledge and in that means of transmission information and communications technologies (ICT) play a fundamental role,” he added.

Engativá believes that it is utopian to believe that the digital divide can be closed. “Any government that says we will close the digital divide is making inaccuracies, but I think what we always do is reduce it”he added.

Matheus Aires, this year’s winner of the ICPC Challenge championship, a programming competition organized by Huawei, also participated in the conversation.