New report by IDB-UNESCO highlights post-COVID challenges to reopening schools in Latin America

The region has an urgent need to plan and define priority actions to guarantee the safety of school operations and educational attention to the most vulnerable populations." Thus concludes the report of the IDB and UNESCO "Reopen schools in Latin America and the Caribbean: Keys, challenges, and dilemmas to plan the safe return to face-to-face classes." The report was released by both international organizations on Monday, December 7, 2020, in an online event.

The document is a diagnosis prepared by both institutions to contribute to the prioritization of education in national response plans to the health emergency and in future recovery strategies. "The countries have deployed various response and recovery plans in which it is necessary to incorporate education as a central element," says the report, "not only to guarantee a response in the educational field but to achieve an equitable, inclusive and sustainable recovery. ".

The report points out that the challenge of developing an educational proposal that manages to integrate the educational experiences of 2020 - due to its inequality - and recover those who have not returned to school will be enormous. For this reason, the document is also a call for regional action so that all educational responses are based on the fundamental principles of inclusion, equity, and non-discrimination. To do this, the report analyzes the possibilities, restrictions, and needs that Latin American and Caribbean countries will face during the process of returning to face-to-face classes, considering the following dimensions: safe schools (school infrastructure, access to water and sanitation): human resources (directors and teachers); remote education (access to ICT and connectivity; financing of education;

In their conclusions, both organizations indicate that the responses that the countries have implemented to guarantee the continuity of learning reflect a remarkable capacity to react to an uncertain scenario, but that there are strong decisions that must be taken as soon as possible because the longer it takes the return to face-to-face classes, the more exclusion will grow and the inequalities will increase.

Among these decisions, UNESCO and the IDB call for investment in improving the state of school infrastructure to offer basic sanitation and hygiene conditions. Also to careful planning of the demand and supply of teachers to return to classes in person, and emphasizes the urgency of improving the policies regarding the training, availability, assignment, and working conditions of teachers.

Regarding information technologies (ICT) and the continuity of classes during the pandemic, the report specifies the inequity between students when technologically faced with educational options in a pandemic and the enormous challenge for pedagogical continuity, especially in rural areas. This period has also evidenced the disparities in the competencies of teachers for the use of ICT, the development of which requires sustained policies that transcend urgency.

Regarding the financing of education, the IDB and UNESCO affirm that the recovery of the education sector will require additional resources, as well as improving its distribution. The enormous inequalities for the face-to-face return to classes highlight the need to incorporate criteria of equity and prioritization of vulnerable populations.

It is also imperative to modernize and streamline the collection and analysis of information to build a more comprehensive view of educational systems that allows facing crises like this one. Currently, there are marked absences to have comparable data from all countries on key indicators for planning the return to face-to-face classes. In many cases, these gaps are a reflection of basic information that is not available at the national level either.

Sabine Riegle-Aubourg, head of the IDB's Education Division (ai), affirms that this report is a warning voice and "a wake-up call about the imperative need to carefully plan education policies. The capacity of the countries to define priority actions that guarantee the safety of school operations and prioritize educational care for the most vulnerable populations will be key. And for this, to avoid a generational catastrophe, education financing must be protected.

Indeed, even before the health emergency, educational systems had significant challenges. In 2018, 10.5 million children and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean were not attending school, of which 16% were out of primary school, 22% out of lower secondary, and 62% out of school. high school. In addition, a large part of the students in the region does not reach basic learning competencies according to the results of PISA (OECD) and the Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (TERCE), applied by UNESCO.

The conclusions

Safe schools (school infrastructure, access to water and sanitation)

Most of the schools in the countries of the region do not have the classroom size conditions that allow compliance with the physical distancing protocols for a face-to-face return to classes. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the structural deficiencies of the school infrastructure. Approximately 3.1 million primary school students do not have access to drinking water services at home or at school. It is urgent that the countries of the region invest in improving the state of the school infrastructure to offer basic conditions of sanitation and hygiene.

Human resources (directors and teachers)

Difficulties for some teachers to return to face-to-face classes and the implementation of hybrid models may imply the need to incorporate new teachers. However, even before the pandemic, many countries were already facing a shortage of trained personnel to meet the educational needs of the population. The region requires careful planning of the demand and supply of teachers to return to classes in person, which has highlighted the urgency of improving policies regarding the training, availability, assignment, and working conditions of teachers.

Remote education (access to ICT and connectivity)

The most used resource in the region for remote and hybrid education has been online platforms (85% of the countries have used them). However, access to technological resources in homes and schools is deficient: on the one hand, 46% of girls and boys between 5 and 12 years old live in homes that do not have an Internet connection; and on the other hand, 62% of primary-level schools and 75% of secondary-level schools have computer equipment. This presents a huge challenge for pedagogical continuity, especially in rural areas. The pandemic has highlighted the disparities in the skills of teachers to use ICT, the development of which requires a sustained policy over time that transcends the urgency of the current situation.

Financing of education

The enormous inequalities for the face-to-face return to classes highlight the need to incorporate criteria of equity and prioritization of vulnerable populations. In this sense, the financing of education, as well as an equitable and efficient allocation of resources, are key as strategies for responding to the crisis to guarantee the right to quality education for all. On the other hand, the ministries of education require robust information systems for educational management (SIGED) that allow planning, formulating, and managing these strategies. 42% of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean still use some type of physical format (such as paper forms) in whole or in part to collect data. It is necessary that the SIGEDs of the region be strengthened and that they deepen the application of technologies to make the collection and analysis of information more efficient; so that they build a more comprehensive view of educational systems that allows facing crises like the current one.