Educational public policies aimed at digital inclusion in Brazil and challenges of emergency remote teaching in the Covid-19 pandemic.

Abstract

Faced with the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, society had to change, changing personal relationships, service provision, service, including the education model. Thus, in Brazil, higher education educational institutions have adopted emergency remote teaching, mediated by digital technologies for the continuity of the teaching and learning process during the pandemic period. However, the country has enormous inequality in terms of access to the internet and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which was noticeable during the pandemic, as the levels of digital divide increase even more. In this sense, the main objective of this research was to present and analyze what were the existing public policies of digital inclusion for education with a focus on higher education in the face of the pandemic context experienced from the year 2020. It is a documentary research based on in documents and data obtained in scientific works that were published on the subject, as well as access to the websites of government agencies and organizations that are responsible for this information. In view of the data collected, it can be concluded that there is a certain deficiency of public policies for digital inclusion aimed at education, especially those aimed at higher education institutions, which was evident during the pandemic period. As a consequence of this deficiency, most institutions had to suspend classes due to the lack of infrastructure and digital resources, which can contribute to the increase in socioeconomic inequalities.