Mexico’s education secretary Esteban Moctezuma Barragán said on Monday said the country’s school year will begin on August 24 through educational instruction on television. Moctezuma said that due to Covid-19 pandemic, it would be a risk to step out and go to schools. He added, “We wanted to return to in-person classes, but it is not possible, nor prudent.”

Mexico has reported 443,813 coronavirus infections and 48,012 deaths. Throughout Latin America, nearly all schooling is being carried out online or through television. Moctezuma cited several countries had opened schools but had to close them as infections spread.

Students continue attending schools in Nicaragua and in Cuba, students are scheduled to return to the classroom from September 1. In Bolivia, the government announced it was ending the school year because it was impossible to guarantee free and universal education in a country where most rural areas lack access to the internet. While in Mexico, remote indigenous communities will be able to access instruction through government radio stations.

Moctezuma said television was a good option because government data shows 94 percent of homes have one. Around 140 million textbooks will be distributed free and homes that have no television can listen to radio classes.

In cases of multiple children at different grade levels in a home, Moctezuma said programming would try to take this into account and that classes would be repeated at multiple time slots. 

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said, “It is returning to classes with all of the formality. This is not an emergency or transitory course. It is starting classes in accordance with the education plan.”

The president said the cost would be minimal and the details would be shared soon.

Source: Washington Post

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