CARING FOR THE RIGHT TO HIGHER EDUCATION IN TIMES OF PANDEMIC ABSTRACT

Abstract

     This article aims to present a first systematization of the actions, balances and perspectives of the institutional experience of online teaching developed by the University of the Republic of Uruguay (Udelar) in the first year of the global COVID-19 pandemic. As a public macrouniversity, Udelar positioned itself in the face of the health emergency in a position of firm commitment to caring for the health of the population and the preservation of the right to education, the maintenance of student trajectories and the mitigation of the processes of educational inequality. For this, it adopted immediate measures to strengthen study conditions throughout the institution, defined general guidelines for the re-planning of teaching and evaluation, promoted didactic and technical support to teachers, as well as help and psychological containment of students. University students. It carried out follow-up actions of the educational reorganization process, both at the central and decentralized levels, in order to permanently adjust institutional action. The academic year leaves a highly positive balance in the levels of coverage of courses, with multiple experimentations, positions and evaluations of university actors. Enriched practices and impoverished practices are identified, but fundamentally, a wide range of institutional learning that forces in the near future to carry out a collective reflective balance of a deeply disturbing experience.