Monday, August 30th, thousands of students return to school after 17 months

The educational system starts up facing challenges such as lag, abandonment, violence and the a third wave of Covid-19.

MEXICO CITY, (August 30, 2021).- After 17 months of confinement and online schooling due to the pandemic, this Monday, August 30, millions of students will go back to the classrooms all across Mexico.

March 20, 2020, was the last day that more than 25 million basic education students were in the classrooms of the more than 233,000 public and private schools in the country.

This day, a percentage of them will return in an unprecedented context where the pandemic prevails, but also the educational backwardness, risk of school dropout, and multiple adverse psycho-emotional and developmental negative effects as a consequence of the confinement.

It is estimated that 5.2 million students did not enroll in the 2020-2021 school year due to causes related to covid-19 or lack of resources, according to the study “Impact of the pandemic in girls and boys ”.

Violence registered all-time highs from March to June 2021, since during the first half of the year there were more than 129 thousand investigation folders opened for family violence, an increase of 24 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.

For this and other critical indicators in the development of Mexican children, the government has urged educational communities to retake the classrooms and provide attention to students.

In the debate on the relevance of the return in the middle of the third wave of covid, there have been multiple voices, from international organizations such as Unicef and UNESCO , who have ordered to leave school confinement, as well as parents and teachers, those responsible for implementing strategies for a safe return.

Some states had previous experience with the Community Learning Centers, which allowed them to define protocols and strategies to attend a greater return of enrollment.

Others, as in the case of Mexico City, will return in a generalized way without previous exercises and with the efforts agreed by teachers in the School Technical Councils.

In addition, while most public schools have reported that they will start face-to-face classes today, the National Confederation of Private Schools reported that around 10 percent of schools in the country will start classes tomorrow and the rest will return to the classrooms sometime in September.

According to the Ministry of Education, the return will also serve to begin a learning recovery strategy that will include a period of diagnostic assessments from August 30 to September 10.

The states that will return in person and in a staggered manner are  Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Aguascalientes, Campeche, State of Mexico, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Querétaro, Morelos, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, Yucatán, Zacatecas, Hidalgo , San Luis Potosí, Puebla, Nayarit and Quintana Roo ; back to school in Mexico City will be widespread.

Source: Milenio