Cesar Callegari, a member of the National Education Council (CNE) for 12 years and currently president ofthe Brazilian Institute of Applied Sociology, and Emilio Munaro, CEO ofGlobal Me—a socioconstructivist, bilingual school in São Paulo—were the guests on the opening panel of the Administrators’ Forum, which is taking place alongside theBett BrasilConference during the four-day event. The discussion, “The Post-Pandemic Educational Landscape: Social and Economic Aspects,” was moderated by journalist and commentator Miriam Leitão.

The trio painted an ultra-realistic picture of Brazilian education in the post-pandemic era, which ultimately laid bare the country’s already notorious social and educational inequality. For the panelists, the future will be different after this sudden push toward the digitization of daily life—and, consequently, of education. The two educators agree that the physical structure of schools needs to be transformed, becoming a place for people to come together and build society. For Emilio Munaro, the time to change the curriculum and pedagogical approach of Brazilian schools is now.

“School is a microcosm of society. That is undisputed. Therefore, the ability to coexist in this collective space is essential. When we talk about expanding the use of technology, it’s not about technology for technology’s sake, but about how it functions as a tool to bring people together and, in doing so, provides what is necessary for our students to learn. These are different ways of learning. Because one thing that must be made clear is that if learning does not take place, we must change the way we teach, because the most important element in the classroom is the student, and they need to learn,” Munaro noted.

Cesar Callegari believes that the path toward a new kind of school, with a new curriculum, can and should be driven by technological resources—which are not yet available to everyone but are becoming more widely accessible—as well as by the technological resources that are still to come. “Reinforcing the idea of school as a place for people to come together and build fundamental values is absolutely essential. But it cannot be the highly precarious and exclusionary school system we have in our country today. This can be changed, must be changed, and needs to change soon, if we have the political will to do so,” the sociologist emphasized.

The panelists also agreed that a large portion of professional occupations do not even exist yet. And yet, the data presented shows a legion of young people condemned to a kind of precarious citizenship. Because without the minimum skills and knowledge needed for future training, young people are unable to enter the job market or lead productive lives. “The future—if we have a future—can only be shaped through collaboration. This is especially true when it comes to tackling the enormous challenges we must overcome,” said Callegari.