Information and Communication Technologies in the Curriculum of Basic Education in Brazil: Conceptions and Reality

Abstract

The recommendation for the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Basic Education, in Brazil, has become more forceful with each curricular reform, under the justification that it is very relevant knowledge for actively participating in the 21st Century. With the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, there was a significant stimulus to the uses of these technologies to support different forms of education, commonly called emergency remote education. Within this scenario, this article aims to discuss the conceptions of technology in the basic education curriculum and the real conditions of access to ICT. So that, literature review and documentary research were carried out. The document outlining the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) of Brazilian education together with data from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee census regarding access to ICT in schools and homes were analyzed. It has been noticed that research carried out in public schools over the last 8 years, already denounced the lack of investment in technology and in teacher training for the use of ICT in these schools. In other words, the exposure caused by the pandemic only led to broader public knowledge of what was already the precarious reality in Brazilian public schools. The theoretical conception that prevails in BNCC is not of integral formation, but instrumental. Although national curriculum recommendations increasingly encourage the use of ICT in school spaces, the reality exposes that investments in human and technological resources are not compatible even for limited instrumental teaching, even with the social pertinence of the theme.