Education
IBGE and Enap launch course on protocols against Covid-19
July 07, 2021 02h00 PM | Last Updated: July 08, 2021 02h44 AM
The IBGE and the National School of Public Administration (Enap) have developed a free online course to give civil servants and citizens guidance on protection measures against Covid-19 during the execution of their activities, mainly in the interaction with the public. The course is entitled “Health protocols against the new coronavirus” and its content is already available, on video at the Enap Virtual School website.
It is expected these guidelines will be available for all public schools partnered with Enap, from all government spheres. For IBGE, the objective is to use course content in training programs for enumerators and census agents that will be visiting housing units during the 2022 Census.
According to the president of Enap, Diogo Costa, an online program can be more encompassing and this one has been conceived with a focus on the concrete challenges agents usually face and other new ones experienced during the pandemic. "The course shows the importance of adopting safety protocols, such as the correct use of adequate individual protection equipment, as in the case of more 180 thousand enumerators visiting about 71 million housing units all over the national territory,” Mr. Costa says.
The course is part of a series of initiatives promoted by Enap against the pandemic, including the training of public agents, online courses, support to projects (for the improvement of rapid Covid tests) and creation of capacities in the public sector. “We try to improve the qualification of our main resource, civil servants, so that we can deliver value and high-quality services to society.”
"The online course elaborated by Enap, in partnership with the IBGE, plays its role in dissemination, including for other institutions, and for a more encompassing audience. That is only one of the partnerships to be established between the two institutes, and that will include teaching activities with Ence,",says Eduardo Rios Neto president of the IBGE.
According to Mr. Rios Neto, health protocols against the new coronavirus are fundamental for any interactions between people, which, in the context of the IBGE, affects both face-to-face surveys, in the interaction between the enumerators and the informant, and the in-office administrative activities.
"We should keep in mind Enap represents a historic and successful example of training for federal civil servants and the IBGE gets more engaged in this partnership every day, considering the conduction of public policies based on evidence," Mr. Rios Neto adds.
How to enroll in classes
Classes are 1 hour long and self-instructional, without a tutoring professor. To watch the content, the user should access the Enap Virtual School website and fill out a form. At the end, the student can take a self-evaluation and get a certificate from Enap.
““As the vaccination advances and some activities get back to face-to-face work, it is important to reinforce non-pharmacological measures against the virus. It is also fundamental to make clear all protocols for face-to-face work and interaction with other people. These measures should remain for some time until the pandemic ends,” says the IBGE Health and Occupation Security manager, Cézar Steinhorst.
The course was developed to be watched as a single unit or as modules. “That allows use of the content for short, medium and long-duration courses, either face-to-face or remotely,” adds Thaís Oliveira, instructional designer at Enap, as she highlights the material used follows guidelines from national and international health surveillance bodies.
With its teaching content developed by Enap, the course had its overall content produced by the IBGE Human Resources Department, with support from the Department of Professional Improvement and Training (CTA), of the National School of Statistical Sciences (Ence).
About the course structure
In its first module, the book presents an overall view of flu-like syndromes up to the discovery of the new coronavirus and explains what it is and how it spreads nowadays. In the second part it approaches recommendations from health organizations, among which are the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), to face the virus.
The third part of the course deals with the importance of health protocols in public organizations. In the fourth part, it gives instructions on the correct use of individual protection equipment and items such as masks and face shield. The fifth and last section approaches protocols for face-to-face work, such as social distancing, use of mask and cleaning of hands and equipment.
