Brazil row over swap to e-books in Sao Paulo colleges

The Sao Paulo state authorities determined this week to largely change textbooks with e-books in excessive colleges, sparking a row in Brazil, the place schooling consultants and publishers warned the transfer might have destructive penalties.

Beginning subsequent 12 months, college students aged 14 and over at 5,300 colleges throughout Brazil’s most populous state will research on digital media, aside from literature courses, state schooling officers mentioned.

The transfer is a part of schooling reforms by the administration of Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, a number one presidential contender and ally of far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).

State Training Secretary Renato Feder mentioned conventional textbooks had “misplaced high quality,” in an interview with newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

However schooling consultants questioned the viability of going digital in a sprawling state of 44 million individuals with huge inequalities and the place many college students don’t have any web entry.

“The dearth of technological infrastructure (was)… clearly demonstrated through the (COVID-19) pandemic by the shortage of sufficient entry” to on-line studying, Olavo Nogueira Filho, govt director of the advocacy group Todos pela Educacao (All for Training), advised AFP.

UNESCO has suggested in opposition to the extreme use of expertise by colleges, saying it may negatively have an effect on studying.

E-book publishers additionally voiced “deep concern” over the measure, warning the harm to the textbook business might show “irreparable.”

State officers mentioned college students who wanted to would have the ability to entry paper texts—one thing Nogueira Filho mentioned “won’t be the exception, however the rule.”

© 2023 AFP