The Mexican Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) announced this Tuesday that in January states that have a low risk level in the epidemiological traffic light will be able to return to classes voluntarily.
“We want a safe return to classes in January and that safe return to classes will obviously be for the states that are in the green,” said Esteban Moctezuma, head of the SEP, in a video message.
Mexico has no contact sessions since March 23, when he began the so – called National Day of healthy distance from the pandemic of covid-19 , which has more than 110,000 dead and more than 1 million 180,000 cases in the country.
The SEP promised that the Aprende en Casa program, in which six public and private television networks participate, would cover 98% of the students.
But the plan faces difficulties because, although 92.5% of Mexican households have at least one television, only 44.3% have a computer and 56.4% have an internet connection, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
For this reason, Moctezuma reported that he agreed with the authorities of the 32 states of the country to allow face-to-face classes in the entities that are in green color in the federal semaphore of risk of the pandemic, although now there are only Campeche, Chiapas and Veracruz, in the southeast of the country.
“Let’s hope that in another month there will be several other states, it depends on how they behave in December because we must follow the health rules and prevent December from becoming a month of widespread contagion,” he warned.
The head of the SEP also revealed that they will install community learning centers within schools for students from states that are in yellow color to attend due to medium risk of the pandemic.
“This community learning center will allow pedagogical and socio-emotional counseling, to be able to use school equipment such as computers or even facilities, such as sports fields,” he explained.
Despite the announcement, the secretary emphasized that he will be very strict with sanitary measures within the campuses. In particular, he stated the healthy distance or physical distancing, the use of face masks, the presence of few people, open spaces and “all the protocol” that he will send to the schools.
“Happy end of the year and I hope that in January many states will return to a new normal, which we can maintain as long as we can behave,” the official concluded. Mexico has the largest Spanish-speaking educational system with about 36 million students at all levels and 2 million workers, according to the SEP.
