COVID-19 brings a ‘catastrophe’ in education to Latin America | Opinion

While the COVID-19 vaccines are around the corner and Latin American economies are expected to start recovering in 2021, the region faces a stark reality: nearly half of the children in some of its poorest areas have dropped out of school since the beginning of the pandemic.

It’s a problem that’s affecting Latin America more than most other regions, new studies show. And it’s likely to produce greater poverty, inequality and mass migration, as well as a further decline in the region’s competitiveness, unless countries take urgent measures to tackle it.

A study (https://contralacorrupcion.mx/estudiantes-en-chiapas-abandonaron-clases-en-pandemia-por-coronavirus) released this week by the non-government group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity says that 45 percent of children in Mexico’s poorest towns of the southern state of Chiapas have abandoned their schooling since the start of the pandemic.

The study included children who were receiving government scholarships to stay in school, but dropped out anyway. It cited the lack of computers, cellular phones, access to internet and the absence of grownup supervision as the main reasons for the massive dropout rate.

The study, based on government data, is consistent with what international organizations are saying. A new World Bank study warns that Latin America is facing an education “inequality catastrophe.” Even children who have studied remotely during the pandemic are lagging behind their counterparts in other parts of the world, it says.

The number of Latin American schoolchildren who suffer from “learning poverty” — as the World Bank refers to 10-year-olds who cannot read and understand a simple text — has risen to 41.2 million, from 33.6 million before the pandemic, the study says.

“There has been a bigger rise of learning poverty in Latin America than in other regions,” Jaime Saavedra, head of the World Bank’s education department, told me. “We’re very concerned, because Latin America already had an education crisis before the pandemic, and now it has gotten much worse.”

Asked why children’s reading comprehension has declined more in Latin America, Saavedra told me that it wasn’t just because of shortages of computers for distance learning, or of teachers trained for remote schooling.

Much of the decline in children’s learning had to do with the fact that, especially in South America, schools have been closed for much longer than in other parts of the world. That’s because the pandemic started at the beginning of the southern hemisphere school-year in March, and has lasted through the entire academic year, he said.

In several South American countries, schools have been closed 90 percent of the time. By comparison, in the United States, Europe and other parts of the northern hemisphere, schools have been closed on and off for a few weeks, or for a couple of months. The fact that part of the pandemic coincided with the northern hemisphere’s summer vacations has helped lessen its impact on children’s learning.

“Every week that goes by without children going to school is a huge loss that will be hard to recover” Saavedra told me. While distance learning is good, and is getting better all the time, at least some on-site learning is essential, he added.

When I asked Saavedra and other experts what should be done, most agreed that countries that have school summer vacations in coming months should scrap them, and re-open their schools in places that are not COVID-19 hotspots. Instead of having all children go to school in the morning, schools should add afternoon and evening classes, fewer students at a time.

On the bright side, the pandemic has forced many Latin American teachers to get up to speed with remote learning technology, which will help the region reduce the digital divide in the future. But a much greater sense of urgency is needed, or Latin America will fall farther behind Asian countries in its ability to compete in an increasingly knowledge-based economy.

The incoming Biden Administration should consider helping provide internet teaching platforms to Latin America, as part of its vow to improve cooperation with the region. If nothing is done, Latin America’s COVID-19 education “catastrophe” will hurt the Americas for decades to come.

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