Fernando Marhuenda, Professor of Didactics and School Organisation at the University of Valencia, has warned about the consequences of confinement in social education. In an article published in the scientific dissemination platform The Conversation, he analyses the effect of distance training in the Third Sector, where many of its socio-educational programs are based on training for the occupation, a mostly face-to-face activity.

“Social education cannot stop even in times of a pandemic. It is not only about providing basic services and attention to vulnerable people, it is also facilitating their inclusion in society”, highlighted Marhuenda. For this reason, it requests that, just as the Government has established measures that guarantee essential care such as care for victims of gender-based violence, “care and protection must also continue for children in distress, for the migrant population, for homeless people, people with disabilities and young people in second chance schools”, among other groups.

The University professor emphasises that a large part of the socio-educational programs aimed at vulnerable people have their backbone in training for employment. Therefore, “if the productive activity stops, the training processes that take place in the course of that activity also stop”, he stressed. Given the interruption of training in workplaces and dual training, users have been left in an “educational limbo”, as this training is basically practical and consists of exercising skills that cannot be carried out remotely.

In this sense, social education may finish the academic year, according to Marhuenda, but after the health crisis caused by the pandemic, “it will continue in a more difficult situation, pending economic recovery and in need of more consistent social policies”. Regarding finishing the academic year and adapting to telework, the professor highlights that the educational teams have already managed to organise work groups in social education through telephone applications, recharging mobile cards and handing out laptops, among others.

Third Sector

In Spain, many of the social inclusion services and programs (including training programs) are promoted and managed by non-profit entities that are part of the Third Sector of Social Action. Many of these are grouped in the Third Sector Platform and belong to the Spanish Network for the Fight against Poverty, which has already warned of the need to activate measures that guarantee the continuity of its programs. In memory of the 2008 crisis, which hit the sector hard, and in view of the consequences that the crisis caused by COVID-19 may have.

Read the original article published in The Conversation