02/24/2021 11:15
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 02/24/2021 11:49 AM
Less than a week after the start of face-to-face classes, after a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic, the province of Buenos Aires adjusted the protocol for returning to classrooms: in an update of what was dictated in October 2020, it
modified the conformation of the bubbles
, which now will not have a predetermined maximum number of students.
The update of the
"Jurisdictional Plan of the Province of Buenos Aires for the safe return to classrooms"
—which follows the guidelines agreed upon in the Federal Council of Education on February 12— eliminated the fixed maximum number of students per bubble and establishes that the Groups will be made up of the number of students allowed by the infrastructure of each school, provided that the established distancing guidelines are met.
Thus, the official intention is for the students to keep 1.5 meters apart and never get closer than 2 meters from the teachers.
In this way, there will be schools that have more bubbles than others, depending on the physical space they have.
In the first version of the protocol
only bubbles of up to 15 students were allowed
, which was a complication for institutions with large courses.
Perpetuo Lentijo, general secretary of the Association of Argentine Private Educational Entities (Adeepra),
celebrated the new provisions
and confided to
Clarín
that "private schools accept them and see them as positive, because they aim to have the greatest possible presence."
Meanwhile, the update urges that schools that are not in a position to guarantee the presence of their students, either due to infrastructure or sanitary conditions, look for another way to restart classes.
The key point that
remains with respect to the original plan
is about the days, which should be simple, four hours, to avoid the agglomeration of students at the same time.
Although the
16,000 establishments of compulsory education in Buenos Aires will
not have to present a specific modality for their approval, which could also be combined, the measures and protocols will be regularly inspected by the General Directorate of Culture and Education in Buenos Aires.
Among the points of the protocol that were already known, the document highlights admissions with staggered schedules, mandatory use of masks, avoiding interaction between subgroups of students and
natural ventilation of the classrooms at all times
.
"Whenever possible the ventilation should be crossed, keeping the doors and windows open at all times or at least every 20 minutes for 5 minutes in a row," the document states.
Collaborated: Fabián Debesa. La Plata. Correspondent.
LGP
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