Virtual Seminar: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Brazil's Education
The COVID-19 pandemic has tremendously impacted all sectors of life, none the least, education. But while many countries in the world have already started a gradual reopening of their schools, the vast majority of cities in Brazil still show no sign of return in the near future, with many government leaders already indicating it won't happen until next year. While in several localities the health indicators still advise the need for extreme caution, it is clear that municipal elections in November have politically contaminated the discussions. Additionally, at the same time that opinion polls show that much of the parents feel unsafe about the return, many education specialists have intensified their warnings about the profound risks of not returning in the near future, especially for poorer kids. As a result, the reopening of schools has become one of the more controversial topics in Brazil's public debate.
To address the impacts of such scenario both in the short and long terms, as well as what should be at the forefront of the conversation in order to secure the best interest of the students, the panel will convene leaders from different arenas who have been immersed in the specifics of an unprecedented and extremely challenging discussion.
Panelists: Tábata Amaral , Olavo Nogueira Filho, and Guilherme Lichand
Moderator: Ann Mische
PLEASE NOTE: Indicated event times are U.S. Eastern Time.
Panelists
Tábata Amaral
Tabata Amaral is 26 years old and was the 6th most voted House Representative of the state of Sao Paulo, elected with 264,450 votes. Raised in Vila Missionaria, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, she won several science olympics and won a scholarship to attend a private high school. She was accepted to Harvard University with a full scholarship and graduated in Political Science and Astrophysics. Since then, she has dedicated herself to education policy. She co-founded the Education Map and the Acredito Movement. As a member of parliament, her main agendas are education, women's rights, political innovation and sustainable futures.
Olavo Nogueira Filho
Olavo Nogueira Filho graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in 2010, completed post-grad studies in Public Management in 2015 at the Center for Public Leadership in Brazil and is currently pursuing a masters degree in Public Administration at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), also in Brazil.
From 2010 to 2012, Filho worked at Parceiros da Educação (Partners in Education), an educational NGO focused on improving the quality of public schools in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 2013 joined the Sao Paulo State Department of Education, one of the largest public school systems in Latin America responsible for overseeing more than 5.000 schools and close to 4 million students. For two years coordinated the design and implementation of a program aimed at incorporating new technologies in the classroom and in the beginning of 2015 was appointed Undersecretary of Technology and Information, becoming one of the youngest undersecretaries in the history of the department.
In mid-2016, Filho left the State Department to become director of educational policy at Todos Pela Educação (All for Education), one of Brazil’s most prominent advocacy organizations and whose main objective is to enact educational policy change at the national level. In September of 2020, became the executive-director of the organization.
Guilherme Lichand
Listed as one of the top 10 Brazilian innovators under 35 and named social innovator of 2014, according to MIT Technology Review, Guilherme Lichand holds a PhD in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University. He’s the UNICEF assistant professor of child well-being and development at the University of Zurich, social innovation specialist at the World Economic Forum Expert Network, co-founder and chairman at Movva, and advisory board member at Uber Money.
Moderator
Ann Mische
Ann Mische’s research focuses on communication, deliberation and leadership in social movements and democratic politics. She has examined these processes in her study of Brazilian youth politics during re-democratization as well as her work on anti-partisanship in Brazil’s recent protest wave. Mische is a core faculty member of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and a faculty fellow of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.