Pablo Sigal
08/27/2020 - 12:25
- Clarín.com
- Society
One tries to imagine what would have happened if the one who proposed to start returning to the classroom was Axel Kicillof. Perhaps it would have been a great feat. But the Buenos Aires governor cannot do it for now because the coronavirus curve prevents him. The one who proposed it was the head of the Buenos Aires government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
The closing of ranks in Kirchnerism to keep the City from advancing in the gradual opening of schools was overwhelming. Technical and protocol issues are raised. But in reality there are three real reasons that have stopped the Buenos Aires outpost from recovering, after more than five months of quarantine , some of the lost education.
The first is linked to the Siamese tandem : there is no possible City without AMBA. The timid return of children without connectivity to the classroom is that on the one hand. But not only that . At the same time it is is a rehearsal . If the trial went well, with the City surpassing the peak of cases, the next step could be for more students to go back to school. For example, all the seventh graders in elementary school and the fifth graders in high school.
Meanwhile, the Province is faced with a different scenario, with a still rising curve of coronavirus cases that prevents it from thinking about these things . It is premature. The peak is expected for mid-September and from there a slow decline in infections would begin. The advance Rodríguez Larreta was once again corseted in that alien reality.
The second reason is the government's link with the unions. From what could be seen and especially heard in recent days, the national state appears subjugated by those arguments that Roberto Baradel had begun to deploy a month ago. Now, the block of Ctera porteño has replicated them. Teachers are convinced that no one should go back to the classroom until there is a vaccination.
Minister Soledad Acuña with Rodríguez Larreta when on March 16 they announced the closure of the schools. Photo: Luciano Thieberger.
In the meantime, it is striking to see the Minister of Education of the Nation trying to explain that students will not pass the year automatically , but that there will be a content recovery next year so that these contents are validated. What will happen to the fifth year boys? , asked Trotta, this Thursday, the journalist Antonio Laje. The minister said that they are working so that these contents are recovered in the faculty. He spoke of an "educational continuity."
Then comes the third reason why what happens happens. Education is not a valuable asset in Argentina . It hasn't been for a long time. They all say yes, but no. There is no true claim or social demand for education. There is no 17A of education . There was never a sincere demand and it is not surprising that there is not one now.
The pedagogue Inés Aguerrondo, consulted by Clarín , considers that "the problem is not the pandemic, but education." And remember years of long educational stoppages in which educational content has never recovered. There is a broken educational contract for many years. The Covid has only illuminated it again.
This is permanently reflected in the standardized educational tests in which Argentina participates, both national and international, with poor results . The defeat long predates the coronavirus. In any case, a paradigm shift in the midst of the storm of the pandemic is what would have caused a surprise. It is not provoked, however, by the usual political entanglement in which almost all issues in Argentina tend to fall.
A statement comes from the Kirchnerist bloc of the Buenos Aires Legislature, which celebrates that the protocol presented by the City has not been approved by the Government. They say that the solution is not for students to go back to school, but to invest more so that these kids have connectivity at home . It remains to be seen if the City can work out these "details" for the next pandemic.
Like everything in this crisis, many aspects have to do with trial and error. Israel, for example, had returned to the classroom and had many infections. They had to backtrack, but now they are pushing for a more segmented comeback. That is what it is all about. Of the intention and the decision to go into a new normal.
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