Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:49material during my classes, so one of
00:01:44being with us. Today we're going to take a break from the political news of the
00:01:47moment and we're going to talk about two topics that will have a much greater impact on
00:01:51our countries in the medium and long term. We're going to start
00:01:55by talking about the future of education.
00:01:58Sweden, one of the most technologically advanced countries in
00:02:02Europe, is backtracking on the use of laptops
00:02:05in schools and
00:02:08of that group time to returning to pencil and paper. It's no joke, the Swedish government is
00:02:12reducing digital education,
00:02:14we are in class with saying that the academic results devices, let's call them, in of using laptops in
00:02:17schools have been disappointing
00:02:20and that they are ordering paper school books to be printed, just
00:02:24like before, old-fashioned. According to the BBC in London, the
00:02:28Swedish government party says that screen-free classes
00:02:31allow children to concentrate more, learn better
00:02:35to write and understand what they read. Will it be the
00:02:38beginning of a global trend to return to pencil and
00:02:41paper? Is it something that all our countries
00:02:45and parents in each of our homes should do?
00:02:48Today we are going to ask a world expert on the
00:02:51subject, and later in the program we are going to change the subject
00:02:55to analyze why Latin American women are having
00:02:59fewer and fewer children than ever before. According to
00:03:03America Scorley magazine, citing United Nations figures, it
00:03:06is a phenomenon that is worrying many economists.
00:03:10Several countries in the region could end up with fewer and fewer
00:03:14use of workers, people of working age, to
00:03:17generate the necessary income
00:03:20student learning, (via taxes) to be able to continue paying the pensions of
00:03:23those who retire. The figures are impressive, the
00:03:27birth rate in Chile, for example, is
00:03:30lower than in Japan, a country where the population
00:03:34has been decreasing for a long time, and throughout Latin
00:03:37America, the birth rate fell from six children per woman in
00:03:411950 to an
00:03:44due to the digitalization policy in average of 1. children, 1.8 children per woman
00:03:48today, from six children to
00:03:51was at the forefront 1.8 children per woman
00:03:54on average, listen to this, today
00:03:57Latin America is the region of the world that is aging most
00:04:01rapidly. The impact of this demographic
00:04:04change is already being seen, there are street
00:04:08demonstrations of retirees in Mexico, in Argentina and in several other
00:04:11countries, in Chile, the protests
00:04:14over the payments of private pensions
00:04:17were one of the main reasons for the social
00:04:20unrest of 2019 where people complained that
00:04:24retirees couldn't make ends meet.
00:04:29they carried in their luggage, in Today we are going to ask the author of the article, a renowned demographer,
00:04:33which Latin American countries face the most
00:04:36serious problems due to population aging and
00:04:40what will be done about it. Well, let's start with
00:04:44the future of education, let's start with Sweden's decision to reduce
00:04:47school laptops and ban cell phones in schools. We have
00:04:51with us Emiliana Vegas,
00:04:54Professor of Education at Harvard University and former senior
00:04:57official of the education departments.
00:05:12Sweden made this decision to start
00:05:15using fewer laptops in schools and return
00:05:18more to pencil and paper. Why do you think they
00:05:22did it? Well, what I understand is that in 2009
00:05:26Sweden began to replace textbooks with
00:05:29laptops in many schools, and
00:05:32since 2017 a National Digitalization Strategy has been
00:05:35adopted, including in preschool, primary, and
00:05:39secondary education. Uh, in. even in
00:05:432019 tablets became mandatory in
00:05:45preschool.
00:05:48However, during all this time, more than 10 years, no follow-up
00:05:52research was done on how much and how
00:05:55children were learning, and in the spring of
00:05:592022 uh, the minister said, "Well, this has been an
00:06:03experiment." But she probably already
00:06:06knew the results of international learning
00:06:10tests like PIRLCP,
00:06:13which were showing that the scores of Swedish
00:06:16students were falling, which was very
00:06:20unusual. Uh, so in
00:06:23August, a very prestigious institute in
00:06:26Sweden also publicly declared that there is
00:06:29clear scientific evidence that digital tools
00:06:33harm rather than improve student
00:06:36learning, and that for me is what leads to
00:06:40this decision in 2025. that the parliament
00:06:43approves the prohibition of mobile phones, which is not
00:06:47to say any, that is, all types
00:06:50of laptops, no, but only
00:06:53phones, but yes,
00:06:56they issue a policy of returning
00:07:00to books as a foundation, especially in early education,
00:07:04and it is actively implemented at the national level,
00:07:08so well, in the end it's something mixed, it's not a
00:07:11total prohibition but of mobile phones. that other countries
00:07:15in the world have also adopted, like France, in schools,
00:07:18children have to come in and check their phone, but if
00:07:22it's a, let's say a program
00:07:25of learning recovery through textbooks,
00:07:29through storybooks, through notebooks, uh, pen and
00:07:33paper, as we would say
00:07:36based on scientific evidence that suggests that children
00:07:39and and especially children whose brains
00:07:43are still developing learn better when they use
00:07:46uh
00:07:49analog, well, not digital learning
00:07:52instruments. Well, if I understood you correctly, Sweden banned
00:07:55cell phones in 2025, last year, but it started
00:07:59implementing the reduction of
00:08:02school laptops this year in
00:08:042026, right? And what they are doing is
00:08:08saying, well, laptops will be used
00:08:11but selectively and specifically when they are
00:08:15learning instruments, but not
00:08:18for the child to be there with a laptop, for example, taking notes and
00:08:21doing anything else, which is usually when there is free
00:08:26laptops. This drop in academic performance in schools, in
00:08:30international tests like the PISA test and the test
00:08:34you mentioned, is it happening only in Sweden or in several
00:08:38countries? Well, in reality it has happened in
00:08:41several countries due to the pandemic,
00:08:44COVID-19, uh,
00:08:47so there is no 100% clarity
00:08:50that Sweden's case is specifically
00:08:53and exclusively
00:08:57schools, however, what is true
00:09:00is that Sweden
00:09:03of bringing all kinds of
00:09:07digital tools for teaching and learning to schools at
00:09:10all levels, from preschool to high school, and has
00:09:14not been able to maintain its results, let
00:09:17alone improve student learning results.
00:09:20Emiliana, did these learning
00:09:23declines start with the pandemic or were they
00:09:26already happening, were they already happening since school
00:09:30tablets started being used at the beginning of the
00:09:332010s? Look, even in
00:09:36in 2016,
00:09:39reading scores in Sweden were
00:09:42falling, but they fell much more dramatically in
00:09:462021, which is the last PISA test, which is for reading and
00:09:50writing. So there was a small
00:09:53alarm, but they are not 10-point drops in the
00:09:57test, which
00:10:00is not huge, but it is worrying because obviously a
00:10:04country as, let's say,
00:10:07rich as Sweden with so much access to education should
00:10:11not be suffering learning losses. Now, obviously
00:10:15with the pandemic, all countries, very few did not
00:10:18suffer learning losses. You told
00:10:21me, Emiliana, in an interview last year that even in the United States,
00:10:25even at Harvard, at Harvard University where you teach, the
00:10:29use of laptops in classes is increasingly
00:10:32banned. Is that still the case or is that
00:10:36changing? Yes, in fact we have found,
00:10:40even the students themselves have asked us for it because there is a lot of
00:10:43scientific evidence, but also truly, I can say it
00:10:47now as a professor that I see it, this was my first
00:10:51year of teaching an entire semester without
00:10:54access to laptops during class time,
00:10:58and the, let's say, the enthusiasm of the students,
00:11:01their attention, how they
00:11:03participated, it was much greater than in previous
00:11:07years where they all could have their laptops.
00:11:11I use a lot of digital
00:11:14the things we did was print, for example, all the
00:11:18slides that I show on the screen so that they can take
00:11:21notes manually during class because also,
00:11:25one has to adapt, one cannot, for example, completely
00:11:29eliminate laptop access if some
00:11:32students have some specific needs, for
00:11:36example, visual or related to the way they learn.
00:11:39But to the extent that one can adapt with
00:11:43paper and pencil or with printing some of the materials that one
00:11:46will use during class, that is important. I think that
00:11:50something we learned, for example, this year is that the ideal
00:11:54is not to eliminate them
00:11:57completely, but rather, as I think Sweden
00:12:01is doing with this new law this
00:12:05year, to use them intentionally
00:12:07and selectively. But today, with the
00:12:10advent of uh
00:12:13social programs like Facebook,
00:12:16Instagram, and everything related to artificial intelligence, children,
00:12:20young people, students, in my case they are adults, it is very easy
00:12:24to get distracted. and not focus, and since classes actually
00:12:28last an hour and a half less, uh, we want to make the most
00:12:33maximize what we can and should learn when
00:12:39a professor or a teacher
00:12:43uh versus the time that students learn independently, in which
00:12:46for example, in our university we have guidelines but we do not prohibit
00:12:50the use of technology or artificial intelligence
00:12:53because they are resources and they
00:12:57are innovations that are very useful for learning. We have to take a break,
00:13:00when we come back we are going to ask Professor Vegas what she advises
00:13:04parents about how much time to let their children
00:13:07spend in front of the screens of school
00:13:10laptops and cell phones, how much time per day.
00:13:14Don't go, we'll
00:13:15be right back.
00:13:20They're backing him, but we have to inform the world about a coup.
00:13:23estado.
00:13:55podcast with the five most important topics of the day, just ask
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00:14:17to the five things you need to know throughout the
00:14:20day.
00:14:23Life was born in the sea.
00:14:26The ocean is the sustenance of our life, really
00:14:29the oceans generate more oxygen, many times more than
00:14:33the forests themselves, the important thing here in the Amazon is the
00:14:37water,
00:14:40these trees will harvest water, generating
00:14:44new rivers, generating
00:14:46lakes, this responsibility to take care of this simple
00:14:50house, is everyone's,
00:14:51we live
00:14:54on a beautiful planet, we have to
00:14:57keep it alive, from any angle of
00:15:01society, everyone has a voice to give and something to contribute,
00:15:05no, and we are all capable of taking small actions, we
00:15:08can't keep talking, talking, talking, it's time to
00:15:11act, put on your superhero suit and start
00:15:15doing something
00:15:16today.
00:15:33In Panorama Mundial we travel the world in search of events that
00:15:37impact our environment, we bring you the most
00:15:41up-to-date information, we disseminate what is discussed on the web and social networks
00:15:45in an organized and verified way to understand what is happening and how it
00:15:49affects us, come, join me to understand the
00:15:52world at the speed at which events occur, you choose the
00:15:56platform, World Panorama with Gabriela
00:16:00Frías.
00:16:40Thank you for continuing with us, we are talking about the future of
00:16:43education, we are analyzing Sweden's
00:16:46decision, one of the most technologically advanced countries in
00:16:49Europe, to backtrack on the use of school tablets
00:16:53and laptops and to return to classes with pencil and
00:16:56paper. The proponents of Sweden's measure
00:16:59say that the academic
00:17:02school laptops have been
00:17:04disappointing. We are talking
00:17:08with Emiliana Vegas, an authority on the subject, she is a Professor of
00:17:11Education at Harvard University and former senior
00:17:14official of the education departments of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development
00:17:18Bank. Let's continue with the interview. Emiliana,
00:17:22let's talk about Latin America, you have spent many years at the World
00:17:25Bank, at the IDB, studying and
00:17:27contributing to education programs in Latin
00:17:30America. Which countries are
00:17:34most obligatorily using school
00:17:38laptops and what results are they
00:17:40getting? Well, the truth is that, as far as I know,
00:17:44no country has said it's mandatory to use
00:17:48laptops or one-to-one
00:17:51classes all the time. What is true is that
00:17:55countries have varied in the investment they have made and how
00:17:58they have, let's say,
00:18:02used the system. The country perhaps
00:18:06best known for the Ceibal program, which was
00:18:09to give a computer or a laptop to every
00:18:12child and every educator, was Uruguay,
00:18:16which has had the program for about 20 years
00:18:19and has had many stages because in the initial stage
00:18:23it was a presidential initiative, let's
00:18:25say, to distribute devices to connect the
00:18:29country, so it was a bit more of an effort of, well, so that every
00:18:32school has a device connected to the internet, I have to make sure that
00:18:36there is connectivity in all parts of the
00:18:39country, no, and the education system
00:18:42adapted, but it was not the one that promoted
00:18:46it, let's say, uh, however,
00:18:49over the years and they saw
00:18:52that it was a tool that they could use to improve
00:18:58to innovate in education, for example, I remember when
00:19:02I was at the Inter-American Development Bank,
00:19:05we negotiated a loan
00:19:08where we facilitated
00:19:11an agreement with a British NGO so that
00:19:14Uruguayan children could access English teachers
00:19:18through technology who were truly
00:19:21teachers who spoke and handled the language very
00:19:25well, no, while getting the number of teachers for Uruguayan
00:19:29children to learn English in all classrooms in the country would
00:19:32have been prohibitively expensive and would have taken
00:19:36years, no. So, as in
00:19:39robotics, but also, I think
00:19:42Uruguay is also an example of a country that started with
00:19:46delivering devices
00:19:48and facilitating connectivity and letting the system
00:19:51adapt, no, and the system adapted but slowly, as
00:19:55education systems generally are,
00:19:59but over time, the Ceibal foundation was
00:20:02created, which went beyond delivering devices
00:20:05but rather how we do research to accompany the
00:20:09use of this technology in the classroom. So, Emiliana,
00:20:12summarizing, what would you recommend to Latin American
00:20:15governments and what advice would you give to parents
00:20:18of school-age children? Should they
00:20:22use school laptops or not?
00:20:25Look, first, with governments, I think we should
00:20:28see technology as a means and not an
00:20:31end. So when we have a problem, let's analyze,
00:20:35for example, if children are not learning
00:20:38fundamental reading and writing, which is a very serious
00:20:42problem in our region, uh, technology can be an ally
00:20:46but it can also be an enemy for other topics
00:20:49like, for example, learning foreign languages where we don't have
00:20:53enough teachers, learning perhaps some subjects already in high
00:20:56school where you already know how to learn independently, well,
00:21:00technology, laptops can be very valuable. I believe that
00:21:04if one allows children to
00:21:07use these tools that exist today for
00:21:10mathematics, for languages, for
00:21:13science, it's a very good productive use. Where I think there are
00:21:17many risks, and we have seen it, for example, in the recent
00:21:20case with Facebook in the United States, which lost a huge
00:21:24lawsuit where apparently the
00:21:27company was found guilty by the US
00:21:31courts of knowing that young people
00:21:34and children were using
00:21:37social media, like Facebook, in ways
00:21:40that were not good for their mental health, where they were being
00:21:44abused by others, by adults.
00:21:48So, it's also important to know that companies
00:21:51are looking for children to stay connected
00:21:54all the time, just like us adults. So
00:21:57it's clear that that connection is not necessarily
00:22:01healthy, not necessarily useful. As a mother,
00:22:05Emiliana, do you set limits for your children, do you set schedules, a
00:22:08specific time they can spend in front of the
00:22:12screen? No, my children are already grown, the
00:22:15youngest is 23 years old, so
00:22:18but uh, when they were
00:22:22young, first, I never gave them an iPad,
00:22:25for example, which is something many children I see, even my young
00:22:29nephews, where they are given an iPad a little so they stay
00:22:33distracted watching children's videos or playing
00:22:36while eating. That seems very harmful to me
00:22:40because the child should learn to be with adults to talk to other
00:22:44children and not need a big sedator, no, because it's almost
00:22:47like the pacifier they gave us, no,
00:22:51uh, and but yes, my children when they were
00:22:55of school age, uh, let's say, in
00:22:58probably in sixth grade, around 12 years old, when they already knew
00:23:02how to read, write, they knew basic
00:23:05math, it became important for them to have
00:23:09a computer. At first it was a big computer on our desk
00:23:12that they had to be there and had all kinds of
00:23:16controls on what they could access and what not. Eventually,
00:23:20and uh, their laptops when they started high school
00:23:23because there the tasks increase
00:23:26and already a lot of independent work, but they already had the
00:23:30basic tools to be able to
00:23:34control, and on the laptops I also put some controls because
00:23:37as I say, there is a lot, there is
00:23:40a lot of bad stuff there on the
00:23:44internet world, in the digital world, and we don't want
00:23:47our boys and girls to fall in with... teachers
00:23:50not these predators. Emiliana
00:23:53Vegas, thank you very much for your time. Let's point out
00:23:57that Facebook has said that it does not agree with the verdict and is evaluating its
00:24:00legal options. We have to go to a break, when we come back, we are
00:24:04going to analyze why Latin American women are having
00:24:08fewer and fewer children and what will
00:24:11be the impact of the fact that Latin America is becoming the region of the
00:24:14world that is aging most
00:24:16rapidly. Don't go, we'll be right back.
00:24:25My name is Pau Mosquera and I am a CNN correspondent, of
00:24:28all the jobs I have done, the one that has perhaps
00:24:32impacted me most personally has been the coverage of the war in
00:24:35Ukraine, seeing and narrating the stories of some of
00:24:39these thousands of refugees has undoubtedly been very difficult,
00:24:42but also necessary, since relating their
00:24:46stories has served to dimension the dramatic
00:24:50nature of this war, conveying the pain it is causing
00:24:54among so many innocent people, nevertheless,
00:24:56something that has surprised me a lot has been the
00:24:59resilience with which these people crossed the
00:25:03border, they did not shed a single tear unless we
00:25:07asked them about what they had left behind, their
00:25:10families, their belongings, but
00:25:13to that I would also add that the extra
00:25:19the few
00:25:50The complete story with Anderson Cooper on Sunday on
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00:25:56CNN is always present to bring you the most relevant
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00:26:09is happening in your city, in your country and in the world,
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00:26:32Mr. Molinares to the Capitol, they left. ready, the funds for the
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00:26:43policies that impact you, from decisions made in
00:26:46Washington to their repercussions throughout the United
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00:26:53relations with the United States? Relations between the United
00:26:56States and Cuba have always been abnormal. Direct
00:27:00USA is that window through which you can enter the United States
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00:27:11directly. Pro-immigrant groups
00:27:14filed a lawsuit from our studios in Washington,
00:27:18I am Juan Carlos López. Join me in Direct
00:27:21USA from Monday to Friday on
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00:27:27To understand the world you need to seek the
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00:28:24hello, I'm Andrés Oppenheimer, if you like that in addition to the political news of the day we talk
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00:28:43help us
00:28:43grow,
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00:29:05Come try the waves come and
00:29:09be happy Cabarete city of waves and wind
00:29:12Dominican Republic every night there is the
00:29:16possibility of a bombardment without
00:29:19filters, they should not treat our young people like
00:29:22that anywhere here they ask, is there freedom
00:29:26of belief in the country in Spain these
00:29:29types of phenomena are not generated by change
00:29:33they are the expression of a change and its foreign policy is debated
00:29:36it will be like that without taking a stand
00:29:39conclusions with Fernando del Rincón from Monday to Friday on CNN.
00:30:49Thank you for staying with us, America's Quarterly magazine, citing United
00:30:53Nations figures, reported a few days ago that Latin America is,
00:30:56listen to this, the region of the world that is
00:30:59aging the fastest. Why?
00:31:02Because Latin American women are having fewer and fewer
00:31:06children. According to the magazine, that will produce a transformation.