The digitization of life and its impacts on the educational system

 
The digitization of life and its impacts on the educational system
By Luciana Jouli, Paulo Zambroni: If only human work creates value, how is the appropriation of that value that is generated in virtual space? Who are the owners of these platforms, with whom should the workers discuss? Does this scenario present us with a complex and competitive work space that will be even more selective? Is knowledge available to everyone? What criteria do we use for the processing of that knowledge?

The communication and learning platforms, the home office and virtual mediation from applications, cross the daily life of the members of the planet, who today are living the Covid-19 as a hinge and transformation moment in economic, social development and politician around the world, of which education workers are a part.

According to the Argentine Internet Chamber, there was a 29% increase in internet use during the first week of preventive and compulsory social isolation in Argentina when educational buildings stopped working, while in the last week of April the tools for Video calls and conferences have risen by 1,500%.

Global health crack appears to be a catalyst forcing humanity to try a new order of things: a "new world order" is built and contested. Mandatory isolation and confinement was determined by governments in almost all countries. Globalized citizens are constituted as the object of this test.

The nation-states, although some have more reflexes than others, do not respond with the same immediacy with which the phenomenon expands. As players who were waiting in the substitute bank, platforms and apps come onto the playing field in global life, conditioning and determining social ties.

The coronavirus, according to Aram Aharonian, is the first great pandemic of capitalism, which reveals the crisis of an economic-social system as we knew it. The digitization of the economy, and its correlate in the global dispute over the control of 5G technology and the development of Artificial intelligence, are part of the objectives that guide the inter-capitalist struggle.

Whoever succeeds in this conflict will be able to dominate the productive times within the new emerging social relations.

In other words, the main inter-capitalist battle is the one that refers to the shortening of the social times of production, in order to obtain a greater margin of wealth and the extraction of surplus value for all the subordinate classes. With the arrival of the Covid-19 to the world, this fight intensified.

We envision the consolidation of new forms of work, apparently nice and of "full freedom". Rappi, Glovo, Uber, Orders Now (among others) are platforms that generate new labor relations where the human bond no longer mediates but virtuality.

The contractual relationship is hidden and, above all, from those who have the power to expropriate what is generated there. Who do the workers respond to? Who do you negotiate with? These changes in work relationships mean nothing more than exploitation and precariousness.

It is then observed that reality forks into two integrated planes: a virtual dimension, with an increasing preponderance in everyday life; and a social territorial dimension, a reality that materializes in the geographical-local.

An expendable workforce?

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), as of April, there are some 826 million students in the world who do not have access to a computer at home, and some 706 million students who also do not have internet at home.

Unesco figures show that more than 1.5 billion students have been affected by the pandemic, since the closure of schools in 191 countries. The temporary closure of schools already affects around 90% of the student population worldwide.

 Unesco Director Audrey Azoulay said in an interview that "We are entering uncharted territory and working with countries to find high-tech, low-tech and non-tech solutions to ensure continuity of learning."

The pandemic pushed us to rearrange the educational structures in less than two months. Without further ado, we set out to build new forms, through virtuality. Thus we see how in China they are developing the largest virtual teaching experience, where more than 200 million students take classes this way through the use of the internet and social networks.

 An example of the confluence in education networks is Spain, one of the countries most affected by the pandemic, where the number of connections to the platform of the Ministry of Education (EducaMadrid) went from 650,000 admissions to 1.1 million in one week.

The increase in pages in the media library also exceeded one million. In Argentina, the Ministry of Education, Educar S.A. y Contenidos Públicos S.A. They created the portal Seguimoeducando.com.ar and, through the National Communications Entity (Enacom) and the telephone companies have guaranteed that browsing this digital platform will be free of charge.

The sector of workers, professionals in general and education in particular, believed in its essential condition, in its exclusivity as an intellectual workforce and, as the expert Luis Bonilla-Molina says, these discussions on the structural transformations of the system appeared " like science fiction. "

However, the Covid-19 pandemic shows us that the world no longer considers the physical presence of teachers in a classroom essential for children, young people and adults to train or educate themselves.

The economic development of the system, the blurring of the nation-states and the construction of new global -local-virtual territories, have had the expected consequence of putting the formal educational system in check, as a generator of strategic knowledge and as part of the superstructure. that builds the common sense of society.

Therefore, in educational platforms, or online education, the teacher is presented as a facilitator rather than a trainer. It broadcasts the content only once and its reproduction, constantly and for a fairly indefinite period, is available on the net. The advantages can be several for the students who become user-clients who “always” can access said content, but not for the worker-trainer.

A series of necessary debates appear here. Virtuality is a tool of globality, but as such, it is in dispute. The present context of isolation places on the shoulders of workers the responsibility of having, on the one hand, the knowledge to work in virtuality and, on the other, the means to do it (computers, connectivity, etc.).

So, it is worth asking, if this new form of education and work advances, what will happen to those who have neither the knowledge nor the means? A dilemma, to be solved, for this new moment of the world economy and society. Questions that merit further exploration of answers ...

The urgent redefinition of the teaching task in front of educational platforms and apps requires thinking and having the capacity for collective and connected responses, proposals that contain virtual reality and organized local territorial reality.

Therefore, the value acquired by the educational dimension is not less in what some authors define as the digital phase of capitalism (datacapitalism), where the main commodities begin to be, by their nature, "intangible and non-restrictive goods", that is to say information and knowledge.

What will be the working conditions? How to carry out the task at a time of new exploitation? Are the platforms configured as new managers and organizers of education? Who produces and who appropriates the contents, data and information poured into them?

If only human work creates value, how is the appropriation of that value generated in virtual space? Who are the owners of these platforms, with whom should the workers discuss? Does this scenario present us with a complex and competitive work space that will be even more selective? Is knowledge available to everyone? What criteria do we use for the processing of that knowledge?

The questions force us to transform ourselves, to be creative in the face of new forms that are rendering the traditional organizational schemes of educational systems obsolete. In this scenario, education workers and students, as part of the subordinate classes, must expose the interests in dispute.

 They must sharpen our skills, deepen the educational organization collectively and online, with local, regional and global projection.

Luciana Jouli is a graduate. in Special Education and Paulo Zambroni in Political Science, and Specialist in youth and adult education, both members of the Center for Studies and Training in Educational Policy (CEFOPED) associated with the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis (CLAE)