Classes in times of pandemic: to reopen schools or not?

Classes in times of pandemic: to reopen schools or not?

31.03.2021
                                    
Agencies |.- One of the things where the coronavirus pandemic had a great impact was education, especially in face-to-face classes.

Today it is an open debate in almost all countries. In the United States, where infections do not stop and exceed millions of people, some sectors are in favor of fully reopening schools, although now with the Biden administration, that point may not be reached.

The pandemic has forced governments around the world, thousands of schools and universities, to modify school and study schedules, as well as the use of Classroom scheduling software to ensure that students resume the continuity of the student program, organizing new timetables and study methods or online and blended classes.

According to UNESCO, with the pandemic, classes were interrupted for more than 1235 million young people in the world, 70.6 percent of students, in 186 countries.

As the months went by, the pressures to open schools grew: In several countries they have already carried it out and there is beginning to be opposition from teachers and families.

What happened where the schools already opened? In the countries that decided last year and at the beginning of this 2021 to reopen schools, but only a few days passed and in all those countries the infections increased. Israel, Spain, Italy, China, Germany were some of the nations that were forced to suspend classes again.

But the lack of protocols, of sanitary protection equipment, classrooms without space, few personnel to guarantee cleanliness, are the most common complaints. The coincidence between the different countries is not by chance, in the majority the budget for public education suffered cuts, equal to or greater than that of health.

As with other things, the coronavirus uncovered the problems in education, the inequalities in accessing it and the precariousness of teaching work.

Obviously it also opens the debate on the way in which classes are taught, the need for the school for socialization in children or how to guarantee an accessible education for all.

But what the pandemic shows is that the problem is not the school, the problem is the system.

| Agencies

Agencies