“Adopting the new paradigm is no easy task,” said the visiting professor at the Institute of Education at Universidad ORT Uruguay. Dr. José Ignacio Porras is also the director of ARSChile—a consulting firm that, as its website states, identifies, monitors, and develops strategies to help organizations manage their stakeholders.
His work involves researching and assisting institutions in the transition to a new network-based organizational paradigm characterized by horizontal structures. This replaces the vertical, hierarchical, and formalistic model of the 19th century, which, in Porras’s words, remains the dominant model to this day.
During hisvisit to the university, he explained that a paradigm shift is difficult because it is deeply ingrained in people’s mindsets and because it requires “a high degree of discretion,” as well as the ability to make decisions independently.
According to him, progress in education is “much more modest than in other areas, such as the economy or culture.” This may be due to the “influence of social ties,” as well as the “hierarchy of education”: “Deep-rooted traditions make it difficult to bring about changes in the way schools have been conceived for centuries.”
In any case, he emphasized that the transformations taking place in society, together with the expansion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the field of education, “are driving changes that are steering the transition toward a new paradigm of networked organization.”
One example of this is the adoption of e-learning methodologies. As he explained, informal collaborative relationships “become just as important as formal ones.” Furthermore, the teacher-student roles are reversed.
Although Porras noted that he does not have enough expertise to assess Uruguay’s current situation in this area, he stated that “initiatives such as the Ceibal Plan show that things are changing.”
Finally, he highlighted the adoption of this new paradigm by the authorities responsible for educational management. Although he noted that it may often be “merely rhetorical,” it is beginning to “influence the direction of school policies” and to have “concrete relevance.”