Advanced datification of education in Uruguay, a public dropout awareness and the hurdles of teachers´ data agency

• In Event: Who rules? Actors, movements, and struggles behind education governance in Latin America (Part 2)

Proposal

The paper offers an in-depth examination of the datafication process within the Uruguayan education system, with a focus on the Plan Ceibal, one of the first nationwide one-to-one (1:1) computing programs in the Global South. The main objectives of the study were: 1) Investigate how the Plan Ceibal transformed the Uruguayan education system through datafication, including its aims and consequences, 2) Identify the key actors involved and how sociotechnical imaginaries (digital inclusion versus digital transformation) shaped their roles, particularly in the post-pandemic era, 3) Discuss the necessary conditions for achieving technological sovereignty and data agency among educators. The central hypothesis is that, without explicit decolonial strategies to embed data agency among education system members, the data infrastructure reproduces vertical relationships with dominant actors (both Big Tech and the state) under the imaginary of "digital transformation".

We use a socio-material lens to examine the datafication process of the Uruguayan education system. From Negroponte's OLPC's soft digital inclusion ideas, which did not foresee platformization, the digital education sociotechnical imaginary of Plan Ceibal served as a conduit for datification, using data infrastructure for continuous measurement of education quality. The deployment of assessment platforms and the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the collection of granular data through Learning Management Systems (LMSs). The case illustrates how "data coloniality” was enacted in the global south. A "statistical cold war” between PISA interpretations and national data (INEEd-Ceibal) exposed deep social inequalities.

The research employed a single-case methodology to explore the datafication process in Uruguayan education, utilising a socio-material lens. Data collection involved interviews with key informants, monitoring grey literature, newspaper articles, and published interviews, as well as secondary research sources. The study also followed Macgilchrist's methodology for observing post-digital practices, which critically highlights the frictions that arise when digital technologies are integrated into specific socio-technical contexts.

The case study of Plan Ceibal illustrates the enactment of "data coloniality" in the Global South and a "statistical cold war" between interpretations of PISA results and national data from INEEd-Ceibal, which exposed deep social inequalities. Teachers' data agency was identified as the "last frontier" against data coloniality and a persistent "puzzling hurdle" in post-pandemic education. However, new tools like the "School Monitor" dashboard, designed for principals, faced adoption issues as principals lacked the necessary skills and perceived it as an additional workload. The study concludes that data alone has a limited effect if it does not consider the cultural realities, contexts, worldviews, and epistemological frameworks of teachers. It is crucial to redefine the professional work of teachers and the vertical relationship with the state to foster a co-construction of the purpose of data use, involving teachers, students, and parents.

Author

• Alejandro Artopoulos, Universidad De San Andrés