Unicef Igarité – Systematization of technology-mediated face-to-face teaching in the State of Amazonas

by Walquiria Tiburcio and Tania Crespo

Ensuring the right to education in Brazil requires new public policies that respond to the specific challenges posed by each geographical region. The Secretariat of Education of the State Amazonas deals on a day-to-day basis with the barriers imposed by the physical geography of the Amazon Basin.

To ensure access to basic education, the government has introduced the Technology-Mediated Face-to-Face Teaching Program (EPMT). The novel feature of the program is its use of real-time telecasting to provide daily access to school for 50,000 students in the final years of primary school, high schools or adult education.

The experiment, which had already been in place for ten years in 2017, was systematized by Move in partnership with UNICEF. The systematization covered the teaching approach, the technological infrastructure and the challenges faced by the policy. It is hoped that this material will serve as an inspiration to other localities that experience similar challenges.

The material is divided into 4 chapters:

  1. The Amazon Region
  2. The Media Center
  3. Infrastructure
  4. Challenges and Opportunities

The document was based on bibliographical research and qualitative data collected in 4 municipalities and involved interviews with Media Center and Education Department staff, teachers, local leaders, school administrators, and current and former EPMT students. Secondary quantitative data from the Education Secretariat’s department of statistics and national surveys were also analyzed.

Read the publication here