Brazil´s House of Representatives approves bill on Digital Education

The House of Representatives approved on Thursday (Aug. 4) a bill establishing the National Policy on Digital Education. The proposal seeks to promote informational and digital skills, online tools, training, and research to encourage digital inclusion. The bill is yet to be considered by the Senate.

The text modifies the Law of Directives and Bases of National Education so that basic education curricula include digital skills from elementary school onwards.

“It is important to point out that, according to a study by the World Economic Forum, 65 percent of children starting elementary school today will have professions that do not yet exist. In addition, 8 of the 10 professions with the highest growth in demand are related to technology,” rapporteur and federal representative Israel Batista (PSB-DF) said.

According to the bill, this national policy will have the following axes:

- digital inclusion, with the provision of formal and non-formal strategies that reach all strata of the population;

- digital education itself, aimed at the development of skills and abilities, with the use of technologies in the school environment;

- digital qualification, understood as offering training opportunities that enable the population to develop skills and abilities at a more advanced level;

- digital specialization, with the purpose of training professionals with an even more sophisticated development of these skills and abilities; and

- digital research, with the purpose of promoting the use of these technologies in national research groups and their insertion in the international scenario.

In the rapporteur's assessment, digital education is "highly relevant" in the contemporary world. According to Batista, the National Policy on Digital Education shall reach all levels of education - from basic education to research.

"The evolution of modernity in societies, in social relations, in the world of work, of communication, of information requires that each citizen be given the necessary opportunities for the development of skills and abilities to deal with communication and information technologies," Israel Batista added.