The Future of Education

All over the world educational systems had face difficulties and challenges in guarantee the learning of their students and at the same time the health safety of all. During 2020, Portugal closed all schools and sent all students home to finish the school year thought at a distance learning strategies. During a period of more than 3 months students and teachers had to change completely and in some cases reinvented the way classes were taught. As OECD says in a recently report [3] “The crisis has exposed the many inadequacies and inequities in our school systems - from the broadband and computers needed for online education, through the supportive environments needed to focus on learning, up to the failure to enable local initiative and align resources with needs.” (OECD, 2021). At the beginning of this year, the Portuguese institute responsible for the student external assessment implemented an online assessment for students enrolled in 3rd, 6th and 9th grades. This diagnostic study had as main goal the assessment of the current state of learning, through the assessment, in a transversal and integrated way, of scientific, reading and mathematics literacies [1]. As part of this study the sampled students of each grade had to take a test with a combination of items from each domain and to answer a context questionnaire. The context questionnaire addressed the following dimensions of analysis: support provided to students at home; students' perceptions of their learning; resources used for learning; difficulties in using learning resources; main activities promoted by teachers; support provided by the school to students. The preliminary results seem to indicate that are significant differences in the learning outcomes of students from the different grades and in the different domains. And it seems that these learning outcomes are also affected by the socioeconomic background of students and their gender. The school and teachers strategies seem also to have an impact of the learning outcomes of students [2].

Keywords: learning opportunities, learning context, COVID-19. 

1. Santos, L. et al (Coord.) (2021). Estudo Diagnóstico das Aprendizagens – Apresentação de Resultados. Lisboa: IAVE, I.P.
2. Santos, L. et al (Coord.) (2021). Estudo Diagnóstico das Aprendizagens, Volume II – O papel do contexto no desempenho dos alunos. Lisboa: IAVE, I.P. (no prelo)
3. OECD (2021). The State of School Education: One Year into the COVID Pandemic. https://doi.org/10.1787/201dde84-en