In February, the Getúlio Vargas Foundation’s Center for Excellence and Innovation in Educational Policy (CEIPE-FGV) published a document aimed at public school systems, offering recommendations on what can be done to mitigate the learning losses resulting from approximately 40 weeks of school closures. Naturally, some form of remote learning took place, but the lack of internet connectivity hindered a robust educational response to COVID-19, and teachers were unable to be adequately prepared for the challenge they faced.

Even so, most municipal school systems and all state school systems were able to carry out educational activities—despite the predictable difficulties—while also providing teachers with an intensive professional learning experience, as they had to adapt to teaching methods they had previously used very little.

In this context of learning by doing and a less structured educational framework, the 2021 school year begins with school districts in very different situations. Most were able to complete the 2020 school year, having completed 800 hours of remote learning. Others will still need to make progress in the coming months to wrap up this unusual school year and will then attempt to begin the curriculum for the 2021 school year.

Regardless of the conditions within each school system, we must pay special attention to the most vulnerable students, who have undoubtedly faced greater difficulties with connectivity and, even with asynchronous activities sent home or broadcast on television or radio, have learned very little. This group is also at the highest risk of dropping out of school and, as a result, seeing their dreams for the future shattered.

The document acknowledges that some learning will continue to take place remotely, even after the return to in-person classes. After all, to reduce class sizes and allow for social distancing, we will need to implement a rotation system for students, with some of them attending classes from home on certain days of the week, while others remain in school, before switching them back to remote learning.

This creates a new situation in which we combine in-person classes with learning at home. If we can ensure that schools provide equipment and internet access for everyone, we will be able to move toward an effective hybrid education model.

However, the document recommends that we also document the homeschooling process—both to track the hours and thus comply with the legal requirement, and to evaluate the quality of the work done and learn from the successes and mistakes of this new experience. We will also need to train teachers in a pedagogical approach that makes better use of classroom time, teaching them to apply learned concepts in collaborative and creative problem-solving activities, and shifting lectures, writing assignments, and individual research based on open-ended questions to the home learning environment. In this case, the teacher will act less as a mere provider of lectures and more as a facilitator of learning—someone who teaches students how to think and prototype solutions.

The text also proposes a reprioritization of the curriculum, since there will not be enough time to cover all the skills outlined in the National Common Core Curriculum. It recommends creating a system for catching up on learning, based on systematic diagnostic assessments. Here, too, technology can provide an opportunity to identify, with greater precision, what each student failed to learn during the first phase of remote learning and to direct them toward content they have not yet mastered—delivered through adaptive platforms in the form of digital lessons and “gamified” solutions. In this way, a personalized learning path can be created without adding an additional burden to teachers, who will already face a very challenging workload upon their return.

What is most important, however, is to ensure that students return to a transformed school—one that has emerged from a painful experience but can pave the way both for making up for lost learning and for preparing them for the uncertain times they will face moving forward. After all, in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, life will require them to be independent thinkers, capable of understanding its opportunities and risks, and able to reinvent themselves frequently. After all, the constant disappearance of jobs—and perhaps entire professions—due to rapid automation will no longer allow for a single, completely secure career path.

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