Educational drama in Latin America bodes more crises and inequalities for the future

Latin America is the region which, in general, has imposed longest school closure in the world, according to Unicef, with a slow and in some cases zero reopening of face-to-face lessons, what you have an almost incalculable long-term effect for minors who are affected in their upbringing, confinement and lack of socialization.

“The decisions of schools in the event of a pandemic must balance the risks of reopening with those of keeping schools closed,” he asked on Monday. Jaime Saavedra, Global Director of Education at the World Bank. However, Most countries on the continent have opened shopping malls, indoor restaurants, and businesses of all kinds before classrooms., despite the fact that it has been shown that children are infected and spread at a lower rate than adults.

“Data from countries where schools have reopened show that, with adequate mitigation, schools pose a low risk of disease transmission for students and teachersAdded Saavedra. A few days ago, he reiterated his warning, with the necessary prevention instructions: “The losses in children are immense. We must enforce protocols, organize transport to school, reduce interactions with adults, vaccinate teachers as quickly as possible. But it’s an emergency to go back to school”.

During, in several countries, children are not learning to read and have not been in a classroom for more than 15 months. Some governments have decided to approve the school year as if they were doing them a favor. In turn, millions of parents (and especially mothers) They cannot work outside their home because they have to take care of minors.

In contrast, in the more prosperous countries, most students have already returned to class, which suggests greater inequality in the future vis-à-vis less developed countries. In June, the NGO Save the Children reported that children in poor countries lost two-thirds more school days due to the pandemic than students in wealthy parts of the world. Even the impact was reflected in the gender differences, since girls in developing countries had 22% fewer hours of schooling than boys. These are gaps that continue to widen every day when face-to-face lessons are not resumed.

In this sense, a study carried out in May in São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil, indicated that distance-educated high school students learned 27.5% of what they would have done face-to-face, based on assessments carried out before and during the pandemic. In turn, the risk of dropping out of school increases by 365% with distance education.

“We are facing the greatest educational crisis in history“Said Luis Benveniste, director of research on human development in Latin America at the World Bank, quoted by the the Wall Street newspaper. “There is no event in recent history that has caused schools to close for such a long time. Human capital and productivity will be affected for a generation if this continues”. The specialists are clear on the possible consequences: less training, fewer opportunities, more poverty, violence and migration crisis.

Virtuality, a limited but useful tool in the event of a health emergency, is impossible in many parts of the continent, both due to the poor infrastructure telecommunications due to the lack of equipment (computers, cell phones, tablets and even electricity) in millions of homes. Some governments have launched education programs for radio Yes TV, which in most cases prevents students from asking questions and evaluating the learned content.

The Share Foundation reported a few days ago in its report Impact of confinement on Latin American children the “Devastating consequences“Quarantines in the five countries in which she works (Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Honduras and Nicaragua), the detection of a”a notable increase in domestic violence and physical and verbal punishment ”.

Latin American children have also been affected in their health by this scenario.. In Ecuador, for example, 20% of the students surveyed were overweight and 11% were obese, ”according to the same study. Young Nicaraguan, for their part, claimed to have trouble sleeping, and “26% have difficulty sleeping for fear of contagion or family bereavement,” the foundation revealed.

Although no one disputes the need for protocols, as well as the priority of educational staff in vaccination campaigns, the studies carried out highlight the low transmission of COVID in schools. These are not estimates or forecasts, but analysis of reopening cases. In Tennessee, Vanderbilt University found low rates of contagion in classrooms even when the state had one of the highest numbers of cases in the United States, one of the most affected countries in the world. , as long as the use of masks and physical distancing. And despite the appearance of new variants, children remain by far the sector least affected by the disease, in terms of health.

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