The initiative arose as a result of COVID-19. Support has been given to 13 public schools in neighbourhoods with a low or very low socio-economic level in Andalusia, Aragon, Extremadura and the Balearic Islands

Resilient Digital Schools, the Ayuda en Acción and CAF project in response to the digital education emergency

photo_camera PHOTO/CAF - The results presentation ceremony, held at the Cervantes Institute, was attended by Alejandro Tiana, Secretary of State for Education, Ignacio Corlazzoli, CAF's Manager for Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and Fernando Mudarra, Director General of the Ayuda en Acción Foundation

The Ayuda en Acción Foundation and CAF -development bank of Latin America- presented yesterday at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid the conclusions and closing data of the Resilient Digital Schools project. A joint initiative that arose as a result of the crisis generated by COVID-19 with the aim of supporting 13 public schools located in neighbourhoods with a low or very low socioeconomic level in Andalusia, Aragon, Extremadura and the Balearic Islands.

With this purpose, the project was carried out to guarantee the right to a quality, inclusive education with equal opportunities for all students in these centres following the obvious digital divide that arose as a result of the pandemic and which many families living in vulnerable situations are facing, without access to many of the new technological tools that are essential for the current education system.

Ignacio Corlazzoli

The implementation of this initiative focused on the digital transformation of schools, especially in those that had the added difficulty of being located in neighbourhoods or areas where the majority of the population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. The event featured experts in the field of teaching and digital transformation who reflected on the main challenges of education in today's digital world.

The event to present the results was attended by Alejandro Tiana Ferrer, Secretary of State for Education; Ignacio Corlazzoli, CAF's Manager for Europe, Asia and the Middle East; and Fernando Mudarra, Director General of the Ayuda en Acción Foundation, and analysed the current challenges of education in the digital world, especially for students in the most vulnerable neighbourhoods. A reality shared by Spain and Latin America.

For his part, Alejandro Tiana, Secretary of State for Education, highlighted the important work of projects such as #ResilientDigitalSchools by agencies and organisations that "make it possible today to be better prepared to respond to the challenges of the education system. In fact, thanks to the identification of those problems that have drawn our attention to the point we were at and to the action of these agents who have taken steps to show us what we were facing, we are in a better position to respond".

Fernando Mudarra

Fernando Mudarra, Director General of the Ayuda en Acción Foundation, highlighted the success of the initiative in the face of an urgent need in the wake of the pandemic to "identify environments that are invisible due to their high poverty rates, adapt individualised action plans for each educational centre and seek maximum standards of education for students by developing medium/long-term programmes".

A success that Ignacio Corlazzoli, CAF's Manager for Europe, Asia and the Middle East agrees with, who stated that "for CAF, this project has fulfilled the dual objective of, on the one hand, supporting Spain as a shareholder country in a difficult situation such as the pandemic that highlighted the challenges of education at a digital level, and on the other, extracting valuable lessons and a model of digital transformation that can serve as a guide for Latin American countries facing similar challenges". Latin America, he added, "has been the region in the world that has kept schools closed for the longest time. According to UNICEF data, schools in the region were closed on average 58% of the time they should have been open, compared to 30% in Western Europe. CAF wants to make every effort to make up for these two lost years.

Alejandro Triana

For her part, Dinorah Singer, coordinator of CAF's Education Agenda, explained the importance of technology as an effective tool for educational learning, to prepare us for the fourth industrial revolution and to advance towards a more active, open education, based on competition. He then presented the challenges of digitalisation in Latin America, a region, he recalled, in which 50% of young people do not have the minimum skills necessary to defend themselves in the labour market, which shows a large gap that has increased with the pandemic. Singer differentiated challenges of urgency such as connectivity and devices (46% of children between 5 and 12 years old do not have connectivity and 60% of schools lack internet); and challenges of importance, which would be the skills of the 21st century, both digital and socio-emotional. To address these challenges, the CAF executive advocated the development of comprehensive programmes in virtual education, teacher training and technical support along with investments in equipment and connectivity. "At CAF, we are convinced that technology can help you", she concluded.

Finally, Mariano Jabonero, Secretary General of the Organisation of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI), stressed in the closing ceremony that "after the pandemic, which has shown the great educational challenges at the digital level, it is time to take action, identifying learning losses, making every effort to recover them and building a new educational model".

More in New technologies-innovation