Student support strategy in pandemic times

Abstract

As a result of the main reflections and analyses on the experience that has been carried out after the declaration of the health emergency due to the presence of the coronavirus in Uruguay, this article aims to present the student support strategy designed and promoted in this context by the Learning Support Program of the University of the Republic. A brief introduction is made to the institutional and health context in which this strategy is situated, and some preliminary results arising from the evaluation of its impact are presented, in the first semester of implementation. This strategy is framed in the largest public university in Uruguay, which has undergone a series of transformations during the last decades, involving a growing expansion and diversification of its student enrollment and academic offer, which translates every year into more students coming from the most diverse socioeconomic and cultural contexts. The strategy involves redirecting all its proposals for student support and orientation to a virtual modality, while promoting two new lines: distance entrance support tutorials, and a space for virtual psychological support and containment. It is based on the concept of institutional responsibility supported by the Program, which considers that it is the institution that is responsible for generating the guarantees so that everyone who is in condition and wishes to do so can develop their complete educational career.