Mr da Silva could, of course, have avoided all of this tension if he and other candidates had followed the advice of Pedro Malan, the current finance minister, who proposed a pre-campaign agreement on basic economic policies that would be maintained to prevent the type of attack that the real has suffered.
Solutions to these underlying challenges include technology, to be sure, but they also require investments in the building blocks of education that must be properly in place to harbor success--such as policies that enable basic access to education, infrastructure, the capacity and commitment by countries and communities to make education a priority, and well-trained teachers able to make learning compelling and lasting.