COVID-19
Humanity is living a cinematic vision of the Zombie Apocalypse, and we know that humans throughout history have evolved in parallel to their difficulties. For the moment, they face one of their greatest crises: The COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2019, the COVID-19 virus first appeared and forced people across the globe into confinement. This confinement led to restrictions in all social areas and increased the socio-economic divide between poor and rich countries. For this, governments have had to reinvent themselves and move towards solutions through technology, automation, and artificial intelligence.
Confinement and Education
The need for confinement forced us to change every day human activities. Education, for instance, has had to take on an entirely new form in the wake of social isolation. On the one hand, governments set parameters in order to maintain social order and to guarantee that students at all levels have academic continuity. At the same time, they had to restrict traditional in-person methods to keep the spread of the virus at bay.
Educational systems are at the heart of all countries. Before the pandemic, it was enough to attend an educational center, study courses, and eventually obtain credentials for the effort. Under the pandemic, students now need to be at home and have the technology to fulfill that role and to do the work. Thus, class participation is now contingent on access and use of technology.
In the case of Venezuela, the government implemented the Cada Familia una Escuela (Every Family a School) plan with the idea that each home would become an extension of the school. Though this plan may look good on paper, in practice it is complicated by the fact that only about 47% of households have access to the internet or computer equipment (Zúñiga, 2020). The country’s economy has suffered a setback over the past two decades, the currency has lost its value, and many are starting to rely on the dollar as legal tender due to the Venezuelan bolivar’s hyperinflation (Rodriguez, 2020). However, very few Venezuelan companies pay their employees in dollars, and not all households receive dollar remittances from family members who are living and working in the United States. As a consequence, there is a social gap in purchasing power between citizens with access to dollars and those who do not have such access.
The almost forced use of technologies due to the emergence of COVID-19 generates class conflict among citizens. In order to access communication with schools, it is necessary to first have the technology. As such, the system automatically marginalizes those who do not have such access.
Surviving the Pandemic
As human beings, we are creatures of habit. We long for “normalcy” because that is what we have learned. After the pandemic, however, we must accept that things will not quite return to the way they once were. Everything is now virtual. Educational systems have been transformed into various iterations ranging from completely virtual to hybrid models that incorporate elements of traditional student-teacher models. Like a chameleon, schools have been forced to adapt.
Social distance is becoming more and more of a necessity, forcing us to turn our homes into workspaces. The family has had to take on many of the duties once designated to schools, which has led to a conflict of responsibilities in many cases that may have long term consequences on human development. To achieve survival, we may be forced to pay the price of increased social inequalities.
Even if we overcome the COVID-19 crisis, society will not return to its previous state. The pandemic has changed humanity across the globe. In the name of minimal survival, this change was inevitable.
Colegio Militar, Caracas, Venezuela flickr photo by Carlos Adampol shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license
References:
Rodriguez, E. (2020, February 6). The Venezuelan economy between the dollar and the bolivar. Global Comment. http://globalcomment.com/the-venezuelan-economy-between-the-dollar-and-the-bolivar/
Zúñiga, M. (2020, May 31). Raising kids in Venezuela was already hard. Then schools shut down. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ world/the_americas/coronavirus-venezuela-schools-distance-learning-child-care/2020/05/27/655481e4-a026-11ea-be06-af5514ee0385_story.html