In Mexico, a low- and middle-income country, the coronavirus pandemic contributes to aggravating the already low level of education achieved by those who attend school and the existing inequality between the type of services and the results obtained by different sectors of the population. population.
The report of the investigation “The Closing of schools caused by Covid-19: consequences and conditions for reopening”, carried out by Concepción Torres Ramírez, from the area of Equity and Social Rights of the Belisario Domínguez Institute of the Senate of the Republic, concluded that Returning to face-to-face classes is a necessity due to the multiple negative effects of school closures, especially for children and adolescents.
“From an educational point of view, the reopening of schools is necessary, but it requires a careful and gradual plan that is based not only on the behavior of the epidemic at the local level but also on the conditions of each campus to offer students security against the disease and certainties in the face of the educational challenge”.
When assessing the effect of the pandemic on the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it was indicated that “the proportion of children who are not able to read and understand a simple text at the end of primary school would have increased from 51 to 62.5%, which would represent almost 7.6 million additional boys and girls to those who were already in that condition before the pandemic.
“Two out of three students entering high school may have difficulty reading or understanding age-appropriate texts, ranking below minimum performance. The estimate for Mexico, presented in three scenarios, is that it could go from 44% to 56, 63 or 70%, below the estimated average for LAC, which would go from 55% to 65, 71 and 77%, respectively,” he warned. .
On the other hand, it was reported that the learning loss would be greater for low-income students compared to the richest.
In other words, students “from the highest income quintile” who go on to secondary school “could have, on average, almost three more years of schooling than those who are located in the lowest quintile,” the analysis indicated.
rolando.ramos@eleconomista.mx