Municipal Secretariat of Education, Culture and Sport of Pacaraima

The initiative began to be designed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and activities will be implemented starting July 2020.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on the land border between Brazil and Venezuela, the initiative has the general objective of guaranteeing access to school education for all students who enroll in the Pacaraima municipal education network.

By 2020, almost half of the students enrolled in the Pacaraima municipal education network are of Venezuelan origin; of the 3351 students enrolled, 1394 were migrants and 674 (including Brazilians and migrants) lived in Santa Elena de Uairén, Venezuela. This indicates that 20.11% of students lived in Venezuela (IIPE-UNESCO, 2020).

Since the closure of the borders in March 2020 due to the health crisis, the municipal education network opts for the apostille teaching method and the implementation of the Targeted Remote Activities Program. These activities had to be sent and carried out at home by students, since many families face difficulties in accessing technologies both in the city of Pacaraima and in the indigenous and rural communities of the region (IIPE-UNESCO, 2020). The decision to adopt this method was based on carrying out a survey with families, sent through Whatsapp groups that each teacher had with their classes. In the questionnaire, about 80% of families said they could not provide their children with the necessary tools to participate in classes virtually (Key Informant 1, 2021).

It was thus established that the teaching staff of the municipal schools of Pacaraima were responsible for the development of remote activities by series. Schools collect the activities and send them to the Department of Education, which is responsible for organizing logistics and transportation. Families also receive school supplies, such as crayons, erasers, notebooks, etc. (IIPE-UNESCO, 2020).

With the intention of allowing wide access to these materials, the mayors of the two municipalities (Pacaraima and Santa Elena de Uairén) discussed and agreed on the possibility of delivery between municipalities. The Municipal Secretariat of Education, Culture, and Sport (SEMECD) of Pacaraima is articulated with the Federal Revenue Service and the Federal Police (by the Brazilian State) and the National Guard and Army (by the Venezuelan State), which authorize pedagogical activities to cross the border and reach children and adolescents during the pandemic period. In addition, there are three officials of the Municipality of Pacaraima who reside in Santa Elena and are in charge of distributing to families or guardians and sending back the activities to Brazil so that they can be corrected by the teaching teams (IIPE-UNESCO, 2020). Since July 2020, the delivery of the activities is monthly. There is a schedule and all families are informed about the delivery dates. While the new activities are being sent, the previous ones are collected and sent to the teachers to carry out grading (IIPE-UNESCO, 2020).

To plan the logistics of the delivery of materials, a survey was carried out in schools with the aim of mapping how many students enrolled in the municipal network resided in Venezuela, evidencing the important difficulty of identifying the real number of students. The initial count indicated approximately 200 students, so an active search was subsequently carried out from the dialogue with families and teachers of the network who lived in the Venezuelan city, identifying a total of 674 children and adolescents (Key Informant 1, 2021).

Directed Remote Activities had good acceptance and participation of students and family members who help with assignments and interact in WhatsApp groups with teaching teams. These virtual groups serve as spaces for dialogue, attending questions, encouraging the performance of tasks, and maintaining the link between students, their families, and the school. Each teacher has a group with students from their class (IIPE-UNESCO, 2020).

Regarding the projections of this experience, the Municipal Secretariat of Education, Culture and Sport of Pacaraima is planning the delivery of a food kit along with the activities from April 2021; this through a redesign with the resources of the National School Feeding Program (PNAE), which offers food and nutrition education actions to students of all stages of public basic education (Key Informant 1, 2021).

Finally, for the return of face-to-face classes, the schools are waiting for the directives of the National Council of Education (CNE) and the State Council of Roraima (CERR). The CNE launched an ordinance indicating that teaching would be remote until the end of 2021 (IIPE-UNESCO, 2020)."

The initiative consists of the development of targeted remote activities, the monthly delivery of the material to the students of the Pacaraima municipal education network residing in Saint Helena, the virtual dialogue with students and their relatives or guardians to monitor the development of activities in their homes.

The target population includes the entire student population enrolled in the Pacaraima municipal education network.

Local and between national States (Brazil - Venezuela)

Urban/Rural

This initiative is based on the articulation between the Municipal Secretariat of Education, Culture and Sport of Pacaraima and the Federal Revenue Service and the Federal Police (by the Brazilian State) and the National Guard and the Army (by the Venezuelan State), which authorize pedagogical activities to cross the border.

The initiative begins to be designed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on the land border between Brazil and Venezuela. It is based on Brazilian legislation on the right to education, especially the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Law on Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDB), Law No. 9394 of 20 December 1996.

The activities do not consider gender variables in their design and implementation.

Targeted Remote Activities had good acceptance and participation from all the actors involved. This initiative brought the school and its entire team closer to students and their families living across the border. There were positive comments from family members and students. School staff are also satisfied with the results. The activities involved 87% of the students and there was no dropout, except those who requested the transfer to other states (Key Informant 1, 2021).

Public resources.

The entire process is being financed by the Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and the Exploitation of Education Professionals (Fundeb).

Interview with key informants held on February 26, 2021:

• Key informant 1: Alión Pereira de Alencar Sulbaran – Municipal Secretary of Education, Culture and Sport (SEMECD) Pacaraima, Roraima.
• Key Informant 2: Selma Fernández – Director of the Immigration Department, SEMECD, Pacaraima, Roraima.
• IIPE-UNESCO (2020). Working document Research project: Obstacles to the schooling of undocumented migrants in four Latin American countries: Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Buenos Aires, Argentina: IIPE-UNESCO, Office for Latin America.

http://pacaraima.rr.gov.br/noticias/1459
https://roraimaemfoco.com.br/acervo/pacaraima-alunos-que-moram-em-santa-elena-recebem-atividades-domiciliares-direcionadas/

This is an initiative that has the potential to be replicated in border regions and innovates by joining forces of different actors (relatives, students, municipal education secretariat up to border control agencies in two different countries) to guarantee full access to education in times of international border closures.

It is important to mention that the municipal education network of Pacaraima has Spanish as a compulsory language since 2003 (IIPE-UNESCO, 2020). In this discipline, interculturalism is worked on and the content includes Venezuelan geography and culture. Teachers are trained in the Spanish language. The grading test is done together with bilingual teachers who can help students with difficulties with the Portuguese language.

In schools, there is a secretariat that supports enrollment and facilitates access to education and is prepared to attend in Spanish. In some cases, they look for the school's Spanish teacher (UNESCO IIEP, 2020).

Good practices of educational inclusion of migrants

Author: UNESCO IIEP Buenos Aires, Oficina para América Latina; Education Cannot Wait; United Nations Children's Fund.

Year of publication: 2021.