The Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) of the Mexican Government affirmed this Sunday that it “prepares a safe return to the classrooms” before the resumption of classes on Monday, January 11, although it omitted more details.
“A safe and prudent return to the classroom is prepared, without hesitation or risks, that provides certainty instead of uncertainty and instability, as has happened in other countries, in the face of an unpredictable virus “, declared the head of the SEP, Esteban Moctezuma, according to a statement.
Mexico has not had face-to-face classes since March 23, when the so-called National Day of Sana Distancia due to the covid-19 pandemic, which accumulates more than 1.44 million cases in the country and almost 127,000 deaths.
The SEP had announced last month that this January the states that were in green color could restart classes voluntarily due to a low level of risk in the national epidemiological traffic light.
But for now only Campeche and Chiapas, in the southeast of the country, present this indicator, while some state governments warned that they were not ready, which has caused uncertainty about the physical return to the schools.
“Within the new Mexican school, impositions and occurrences do not fit in the horizontal exercise of public education,” acknowledged this Sunday Secretary Moctezuma.
To serve the more than 30 million students from basic to upper secondary education, the SEP opted for the Aprende en Casa program, in which six public and private television stations participate to teach the lessons.
After a survey, the secretariat reported this Sunday that in the middle of the 2020-2021 school year, almost 300,000 have participated virtually basic education teachers, among them directors, supervisors and technical advisers, which represents 25% of the total of 1.2 million in the register.
The agency asserted that nine out of 10 teachers rated the decision to teach classes on television as “correct”.
Likewise, he affirmed that more than 80% of the students attend their virtual classes three times or more per week.
The plan has faced difficulties because, although 92.5% of Mexican households have at least one television, only 44.3% have a computer and 56.4% Internet connection, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
Even so, the SEP argued that it “responded quickly to the health emergency of covid-19 that surprised the planet, saving the national educational system from paralysis.”
The statement comes a day after the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, promised that teachers will have priority access to the vaccine against covid-19 after finishing the immunization of health personnel and adults over 60, which is expected to end at the end of March.
“By April we will start with those who are younger, with chronic diseases, then teachers and thus we think that we will not lack vaccines,” said the president.
With information from EFE
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