An Overview of Remote Education in Huila.

The pandemic known as COVID 19 created the current emerging parameters and

regulations for education, this has led us to new scenarios which education has obligated

students’ to have specific requirements to cope with it, such as; availability of resources,

environment, health and proper instruction. It is well known to everyone in Colombia that

the lack of resources, connectivity and instruction is insufficient in specific areas where

students are from. Remote education requires students to have most of them in order to

perform properly according to what has been stablished. Huila has different towns where

population cannot afford or have access to internet or technological devices, furthermore

specialists or instructed educators are not part of the regional areas either schools. In this

regard it is relevant to say that Huila lacks of the possibility to establish remote scenarios

where students are expected to be instructed and equipped to achieve the knowledge

required in their specific areas.

Remote education requires different strategies, approaches and methodologies to implement

and use with their students in order to get them motivated and fully active in the whole

process, according to what has been mentioned, the real question here is: are ALL

educational centers in Huila ready to do so? Inequality is the main trigger to an education

system, therefore, living in the Colombian scenario we can come to an answer. The

acquisition of skills required for this field as well as the technological sources among with

pedagogical models and dynamics is the most important factor and the biggest challenge.
There is no argument in the possibility to proceed and continue remote education in the

main schools and universities from Neiva, Pitalito and Garzon, which are the biggest cities

in the region, they count with the support and the facility of professional instruction, as well

as connoisseurs of the technological and remote field. These institutions have the capacity

to develop remote tools, strategies, platforms, methodologies and approaches, which can be

develop by the teachers and specialists who are part of the institutions. On the other hand,

we can talk about other ones such as; Elias, San Adolfo and Acevedo, smaller towns where

internet connection is only given in the urban zones but hardly evidenced in the rural ones,

where there are no resources or internet connection, that are among the required basis for

remote education.

Parental support makes also a great impact on one’s education and for the students involved

in primary level and secondary level this is almost a requirement to cope and participate

actively in the remote classrooms. As stated by Viner, et al., (2020), “reviews have also

noted the adverse effects of school closure, including economic harms to working parents”

(p.2), which shows the damage this type of education causes to parents who have to work

even more to provide their families with their basic needs, leaving their kids at home in

some cases to go and bring those. Therefore, it is also important to mention a study done by

OECD, (2020), which showed and proved the claim that “students need the support of their

parents to engage with their learning and reduce anxiety in these stressful times. In

Colombia, 89% of students "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that their parents support their

educational efforts and achievements, which is the same as the OECD average (89%).” (p.

6)
Many educational centers argue that their conditions along with student’s performance

show a proficient result that continues to approve the fact that Huila is ready to stablish

remote scenarios among the different towns. Some of the cities and towns of Huila are

equipped with the resources and technological devices as well as the specialists and

professionals ready to help, instruct and provide in an organized manner the knowledge and

learning strategies needed for specific groups of population that are the ones from private

education and the ones benefited with the government helps, many claim Huila is ready to

keep on providing remote education but the truth is that they are not seeing the whole

panorama involved on it. Huila does not have the tools, instruction or either the strategies to

approach remote education effectively in ALL towns and regions. Different aspects to

claim this are in need to be considered, just to mention one of them, a study made by

OECD, (2020) showed that “much like access to computers, access to a quiet place to study

may also have deteriorated during the crisis due to similar needs by parents for teleworking,

and siblings for home schooling” (p.5). Where it is clearly presented that not only because

students have the technological resources they may be performing properly or under the

proper circumstances. Therefore, as presented in Aboagye, et al., (2020), where they

identified accessibility as an important challenge to online learning as this can be attributed

to different geographical locations used for the studies. The importance of the lack of

resources, instruction and government action can be reiterated due to the low awareness

raised towards the needs these communities and students have in order to perform without

the basic elements.

If we analyze critically the circumstances and scenarios some of our students and teachers

are involved and currently living, we would have to conclude that there are plenty of

aspects that need to be considered before we claim that we have the facility to move

forward with this type of education. It is important to mention a) the capacity that each

school has to implement new teaching strategies and learning methodologies, b) how fast

they can adapt their materials for digital use, c) how educational centers would respond to

the lack of resources, experience and economy in students’ houses. Hence, it is also

relevant to d) establish the crucial role of parents accompany and instruction, as well as e)

the involvement of the different parts to accomplish the goals determined (collaborative

work) between schools, parents and students. Reflecting upon the main characteristics to

overcome and cope with remote education is what makes this argument a real concern

because not all educational centers have the possibility to accurately establish their own

remote curricula, strategies or platforms, some students do not have the resources, the

devices or materials and in other cases there is no parental supervision to rely on due to

other responsibilities parents faces.

 References

Aboagye, E., Yawson, J. A., & Appiah, K. N. (2020). COVID-19 and E-Learning: the

Challenges of Students in Tertiary Institutions. Social Education Research, 2(1), 1-8.

https://doi.org/10.37256/ser.212021422

Viner, M., Russell, S., Croker, H., Packer, J., Ward, J., Stanfield, C., Mytton, O., Bonell,

C., Booy, R. (2020).School closure and management practices during coronavirus

outbreaks including COVID-19: a rapid systematic review.  https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-

4642(20)30095-X

OECD. (2020). School Education During COVID-19, Were Teachers and Students ready?.

https://www.oecd.org/education/coronavirus-education-country-notes.htm