Emergency Remote Education and Distance Education in Brazil during the Pandemic

Abstract

In 2020, Brazil and the world were affected by the pandemic, a situation that led to the establishment of the protocol of social distancing by health authorities. All sectors were drastically affected, the educational, consequently, was not left out. Remote classes and digital information and communication technologies (DICT) have been highlighted as the only
way to comply with the covid-19 pandemic distancing protocol to educational institutions and schools across the country. This work contextualizes Emergency Remote Education (ERE)
and points to the evidence of distance education (DE) as a possibility of access in the segments of education, especially the higher level. The study aims to reflect the impacts of Emergency Remote Education in consolidating the use of DICT in the educational environment and on expanding access to higher education in Brazil. The research can be classified according to its general objectives as exploratory, with a qualitative approach. Regarding its nature, the
research is applied and, as to its technical procedures, documentary. As results, evidence was obtained that DE in Brazil was driven by Emergency Remote Education, widely used due to restrictions of social isolation in times of pandemic. It was also observed that for better democratization of higher education in the country, investments in infrastructure are required to expand access to broadband network and educational content at all levels. In conclusion, it can be mentioned that DE contributes to the expansion of higher education, but for an effective democratization of access to education at any level, deep research efforts, investments and
pedagogical updating are needed.