Oviedo, Oct 23 (EFE).- The secretary general of the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI), Mariano Jabonero, defended this Wednesday that the recovery of the educational gap caused by the COVID-19 pandemic Covid-19 in Latin American children can be “shortened” through the use of virtual education systems.
During a meeting with the media in Oviedo, where on Friday he will collect the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 2024 that has been awarded to this organization, Jabonero has warned that the impact of the pandemic on the education of Latin American children It has been “very serious”, a “parenthesis” that, as he stated, “has not yet been recovered.”
«It was one of the regions in the world in which this confinement was the longest. It must be taken into account that Latin America has 8 percent of the world’s population, but we had 30 percent of the infections; “The pandemic was especially cruel to Latin America,” he explained.
With more than 650 ongoing projects, 400 active cooperation agreements and presence in 23 countries, the OEI represents one of the largest cooperation networks in Latin America, where it develops educational projects with which it has contributed to the drastic reduction of illiteracy in Latin America. with an average of 11 million direct beneficiaries in the last 5 years.
Jabonero has lamented that the confinements will translate in the future into a “loss of skills” for the affected students, a “negative inheritance” whose recovery through “traditional systems” of education would be very slow, but which can be “shortened.” with the use of virtual educational systems, he stated.
«They are more effective, more efficient and they reach everyone more easily and also as a consequence of the pandemic, to a large extent, they have been greatly improved, we have moved from emergency remote virtual education to much more advanced education systems with a lot of more quality,” emphasized the head of the OEI, which has been distinguished for “for its fruitful work in promoting multilateralism and for representing an important bridge in relations between Europe and Latin America.”
A “growing and thriving” Hispanic population in the US.
According to the secretary general of the OEI, Hispanics in the United States make up a “growing and thriving” population that, with 62 million members, has already “vastly surpassed” the African-American community in number, which is why the OEI is “building a specific work agenda” for them in collaboration with Georgetown University, mainly.
“It is true that it is a population that is in a country that is not a member of the OEI, but I consider that they are Ibero-American citizens, so we do have a good relationship with them,” said Jabonero, who detailed that, in North America, The organization’s intervention focuses on the “preservation of cultural and migratory values” of the countries of origin of these people.
The economic potential of the language
The secretary general of the OEI has also emphasized the economic potential that the “language economy” has for the development of the Ibero-American region, regarding which he has provided data such as that Spanish is already the “fourth language of the internet.” » or that the language has a «share of around 20% in the economy».
Regarding the next challenges of the OEI, Jabonero has pointed to the consolidation of activity, digital transformation and the need to “continue supporting democracy as the best form of Government.”
Founded in 1949, the OEI is the first intergovernmental organization for South-South cooperation in Latin America and currently has 23 member states and 19 national offices, in addition to its General Secretariat in Madrid.
