The outbreak of coronavirus, unions and vaccination: all the doubts about the return of the boys to the classrooms

01/15/2021 18:33

• Clarín.com

• Society

Updated 01/15/2021 18:39

The

face-to-face classes in schools

, suspended since March last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, is still an open discussion, which depends not only on the

epidemiological variable

but also on

the vaccination plan

and

the will of the unions

.

It is a debate that in recent days

has intensified on the political level

, with the public letter of former president Mauricio Macri to demand that the reopening of schools be guaranteed and with the resistance of the Buenos Aires unions that threatens to frustrate the intention by Horacio Rodríguez Larreta to return to the presence on February 17.

For now, the Minister of Education of the Nation, Nicolás Trotta, began a tour of the provinces to coordinate the start of the school year and assured that "classes begin throughout the country"

, while clarifying that the decision is in the hands of each governor. 

However, Trotta is in charge of clarifying that presence

is subject to the level of contagion

of coronavirus that transits each jurisdiction,

to the vaccination of teachers

and the redesign of health protocols.

"We have to be aware that we are going to have to deal with the reality of Covid-19, which

implies protocols and also prioritization of the vaccination of teachers,

which is a decision that our government has adopted and that we will begin in the month of February ", he reviewed this Friday in statements to

radio Miter.

The position of the guilds

Some of the educational unions were in charge this week to make it clear that

their position will also be a key piece in

defining the return of boys to schools.

It was the Secretary General of UTE-Ctera, Angélica Graciano, who warned that "

on February 17 there will be no conditions to return to presence"

in the City of Buenos Aires.

"All the indicators of coronavirus infections in the City of Buenos Aires are very serious. The classrooms have not been put in condition, with which on February 17 there will be no conditions to return to the presence," Graciano reiterated this Friday.

After Ctera's warning, the government of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta called the teachers' unions to a meeting this Friday to ratify that the objective is to reopen schools on February 17 and emphasize that

"presence is an absolute priority."

For his part, Trotta said that he calls for the construction of "consensus" with the teachers' unions. 

"We must all promote maximum presence,

taking care not only of teachers but also of our children, without forgetting that we are in a pandemic," he said.

"Public policies are built with dialogue, which does not mean that one does not defend their ideas. And the union organizations can have a look, but we are the government that reestablished the teaching parity, which is also a way to build consensus" , highlighted this Friday.

And he recognized that the return of the presence will activate "conflicts" with the unions.

"We have to build dialogues and consensus with all the actors in the system to meet an objective that we should all have, which is not just presence," he remarked.

The outbreak of coronavirus

In principle, the Minister of Education announced that next week the

Federal Council of Education

will meet again

, made up

of the ministers of each of the provinces and in whose scope they defined the

"epidemiological traffic light

" and the protocols that the national government presented in October to enable the return to classrooms.

Trotta acknowledged this Friday that

those criteria were outdated

before the

new evidence on the coronavirus and advanced: "

We are going to modify any measure that is necessary

to be able to fulfill the objective that we have ahead of us, which is to maximize presence."

The summit will be held before the jump in cases of coronavirus, by which the national government issued a decree to recommend to the governors that they

reduce the circulation during the night.

Even the controversy surrounding the reopening of the schools was heated by the words of the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, who said that "if we want classes to start in March, we have to be extremely careful today

.

"

Trotta endorsed that condition.

Vaccination

The other weighty variable to reopen schools has to do with the

vaccination of teachers

, especially those who make up the group at risk of coronavirus, either because they are over 60 years old or base diseases.

The goal is for teachers to

start receiving the doses in February

, as happens with health personnel who agreed to the first batches of the Sputnik V vaccine produced by the Russian center Gamaleya.

Precisely, this Friday the Aerolineas Argentinas plane left Moscow that will bring the departure of the second dose of that vaccine.

Regarding the progress of the vaccination plan, the Secretary of Access to Health, Carla Vizzotti, detailed this Friday that

200,000 doses were applied

since last December 29.

In this first stage, the vaccine is intended for health personnel between 18 and 59 years of age, from intensive care units and microbiology laboratories of health institutions located in large urban agglomerates, where the pandemic had a greater impact.

Those who received it, still have to apply the reinforcement.

Another fact to take into account is that this vaccine still does not have the ANMAT's endorsement for its application in people over 60 years of age.

The issue becomes more complex if one takes into account that the first doses of the Oxford vaccine would be available in Argentina between the end of March and the beginning of April, as confirmed by

Clarín

.

Faced with this situation, the government's intention to massively vaccinate teachers seems to be

a great unknown,

especially if it wants to respect the school calendar so that in most provinces the return to the classroom takes place in March.

LP

Look also

Back to the classroom: Unicef ​​assures that there is no more risk for students or teachers

Nicolás Trotta said that "classes begin" despite the resistance of teachers' unions to return to classrooms in person