Sergio Quintella resumes activities at FGV and announces relevant projects for Brazilian education

The second half of 2017 began a few days ago, but many are the plans and challenges for those who think in the medium and long term and do not have time to waste. This is the case of Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), the largest think tank in Latin America, committed to the socioeconomic development of the country. FGV News spoke with FGV’s Vice President, Sergio Franklin Quintella, who resumes his activities this month and announced some projects that will guide FGV’s actions not only in the next few months, but in years to come.

An Engineer and Economist specialized in Administration, Sergio Quintella points out two major challenges for Fundação Getulio Vargas in the coming years. The first one relates to FGV’s Schools and the Institute for Educational Development (IDE), which should modernize their curricula to place greater emphasis on new technologies, empowering professors and other professionals to offer students what the internet, in particular, can provide for their development. The second is to continue paying society a service of excellence in education and research, not forgetting the significant increase in competition, with new multinational players and mergers in the field of education and research.

However, the Vice President is really excited about a different project. Sergio Quintella revealed that FGV intends to increase its participation and focus its efforts on improving the quality of high school education in Brazil. Some initiatives are already being developed with this area in mind, such as the FGV Digital High School Platform, which offers free content since 2012 for students from all over country to complement their studies and assess their knowledge through tests and simulated exams. Now, the idea is to invest in training approximately 600,000 teachers who work in this segment of education in Brazil.

“We feel that there is a lack of qualified teachers in high school and basic education. Part of our mission is to collaborate with teacher training in some sectors seen as deficient, especially math and writing. This training can be provided via Distance Education, as we did with the FGV Online courses, in order to reach all of Brazil, since high school and basic education teachers are not only in the capitals, but also in the countryside.”

His enthusiasm does not fail even when talking about the current Brazilian crisis. Fascinated by History, Sergio Quintella points out that this is the worst crisis Brazil has ever faced, precisely by combining political and economic factors – something completely unprecedented – and it is hard to provide a prognosis on the current scenario.

“Our past experience gives us hope that we will overcome this crisis, despite never having experienced this combination of political and economic factors, which makes our current situation much more complex”, he said.

In the Photo: from left to right: Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal, Sergio Franklin Quintella, Francisco Dornelles, Lindolpho de Carvalho Dias.