Magdalena Brier, Managing Director of ProFuturo, sought to launch a message of hope during her speech in the virtual forum held on 30 September by highlighting that “radically changing education throughout the world might seem to be a daunting mission, but we believe that it can be achieved if we work together”. In this regard, she detailed ProFuturo’s efforts to offer its digital content for free to not only teachers but also families, students and institutions throughout the world since the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close.
“Education is a basic human right, but above all it is key to the development of countries. When children cannot go to school, we know that the future is uncertain. However, even when they do attend school, sometimes there are insufficient guarantees that they will be able to acquire the educational skills demanded by 21st century society”, Magdalena Brier explained.
In line with what is affirmed by other international entities with which ProFuturo regularly collaborates, the director of the digital education programme that has been driven since 2016 by the Telefónica Foundation and the “la Caixa” Foundation underscored the importance of digital education in times of a pandemic such as the one we are currently experiencing. “There is an education gap in many regions of the world, and the vulnerability associated with the growth of the digital gap increases the risk of those regions being included”, she put forward. Therefore, for four years ProFuturo has been working to improve access to digital education by countries in vulnerable environments.
“The digital education programme that we implement is based on technology that adapts to the needs of both teachers and students. It is flexible and requires no Internet connection. For four years now we have been showing that it is possible to take quality digital education to any country of the world, which is why we are already present in 38 countries of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia, and we have even implemented our programme in emergency contexts with refugee children”, she highlighted.
