Challenges to implement remote education in brazilian higher education in a pandemic context

Abstract

The isolation measures demanded by the COVID-19 pandemic made higher education had to adhere, even if only momentarily, to generalized remote education, given the infeasibility of presential classes. Thus, this study emphasizes the way in which remote formats have gained expressiveness in private institutions of higher education, which is related to the increasing commercialization of education, and also the losses caused to the learning process in a non-classroom teaching environment. In the scenario posed by the pandemic, the fact that private institutions depend on tuition to remain active was decisive for the immediate resumption of classes in the remote format. However, students who started taking distance classes experience the absence of debates and knowledge exchange and the emptying of meaning in that learning space, which in the virtual format has become a mere place for the absorption of content.