06/01/2020 - 15:45
- Clarín.com
- World
Some 80,000 Uruguayan students from more than 600 public primary and secondary education centers were enabled this Monday to return to the face-to-face classes that had been interrupted on March 13 by the declaration of the health emergency due to the new coronavirus.
Thus Uruguay became the first country in Latin America to resume the school year while reporting a hundred active infected throughout its territory .
"We take this step because we are convinced that the risk is minimal," said President Luis Lacalle Pou when he announced the return to school. Although he was also cautious: "Forward everything possible, for backward everything necessary" .
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Watch the specialThe return to the classrooms is gradual and voluntary: another group of 230,000 students will begin in 15 days and the remaining 390,000 will be presented at the end of the month. Private schools were also empowered to start according to their own schedule.
On Monday, the educational centers located outside the capital's metropolitan area began , where the greatest number of cases of COVID-19 accumulates, and the students of the last year of high school and schools in vulnerable communities.
The groups were divided into two to maintain physical distance and each one will have face-to-face classes two days a week that will be accompanied by virtual ones. Students may not stay more than four hours in the establishments.
The National Administration of Public Education (ANEP) released a health prevention protocol that establishes income with staggered hours, ventilation, hand washing, use of alcohol gel and disinfection of materials and devices in common use.
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The mask is mandatory for middle school students and voluntary for schoolchildren and preschoolers. During sports and recesses, efforts will be made to maintain physical distance.
"We have to move forward at a steady pace in case we have to go backwards. Move forward with maximum security, learning that in current circumstances there is no zero risk or total security," Robert Silva, president of ANEP, told The Associated Press.
In the Rural School 128 of the department of Canelones, one hour from Montevideo, the smell of bleach crossed the classrooms and common spaces. About twenty children started classes listening to the speeches of the local authorities and singing with a teacher and the principal, who wore face shields. Once in the classrooms, the teachers showed the children the new cleaning supplies, how and why to use them.
The progressive return will be monitored by the health authorities and was made possible by the recommendations of the government's Scientific Advisory Honorary Committee.
Transmission of the new coronavirus "is in a zone of relative control," said Rafael Radi, a member of the Committee and the first Uruguayan scientist associated with the United States Academy of Sciences.
In Uruguay, no child under the age of five has been infected . The "positive effects of school closure are at least debatable. But the negative effects are indisputable," said Professor Henry Cohen, former president of the Uruguayan Academy of Medicine and also a member of the Committee.
Since April 22, some 900 rural schools have opened in areas far from the infection. In 300 staff tests none were positive to COVID-19.
So far the new coronavirus has been registered in eight of the country's 19 territorial divisions. Since March 13, when the first three cases were detected, 823 infections and 22 deaths were reported. There are currently 116 people carrying the infection - of which five are in intensive care - and 685 have recovered.
The voluntary return has managed to get 50% of schoolchildren back to classrooms . The reduction in the frequency of public transport and families' fear of social interaction are the main challenges that the restart of face-to-face education seems to face.
"We bet that the educational community builds reintegration with families. That they go and verify that security measures have been taken and that they can trust their children, the most precious thing that any human being has," Silva said.
Both President Lacalle Pou and Silva have reaffirmed that it is imperative to guarantee the right to education. At the intermediate level two out of 10 students did not participate in the slogans on the virtual platforms, Silva told the AP.
"Those who are in a vulnerable situation are affected by their right to education because several thousand are disconnected. There are also thousands who have connected very little and we have many who are not learning. I think that is the question to be addressed," he explained.
Source: AP