Ricardo Braginski
07/14/2021 18:15
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 07/14/2021 7:34 PM
It is nothing new to say that the teaching of classes has been very irregular this year in the country.
Some jurisdictions started earlier than others, there were schools with a higher or lower level of presence, also times with more or less restrictions.
There are even districts that still have schools closed today, such as 22 in the province of Buenos Aires.
But it was not yet known
how many were the boys who -after a 2020 without classes- still do not go to school.
Unicef measured it and found that, although most of the children at some point went to school,
more than a million of them have not been in the classroom so far this year.
They had to follow the studies, at best,
remotely
.
The research was done in homes across the country.
Although 91% reported that the boys had classes in the classrooms,
there is a 9%
- representing
more than a million students
- who have not yet returned to the presence.
The data has some peculiarities.
They show, for example, that
in the Northwest and in Patagonia
the proportion of homes where no boys had a presence is higher: it rises to
21% and 23% respectively
.
For Cora Steimberg, Education specialist at Unicef and author of the study, it is because there are
the provinces that opened their schools the least this year.
The problem of the boys who did not have school attendance this year adds to the
school dropout
that occurred last year as a result of the pandemic.
The national Ministry of Education had estimated in June 2020 that around one million students in the country could lose educational continuity due to the low or no contact they had had with their schools.
More than a year later, the UNICEF report presented this Wednesday gives
more precision
on that number. In 6% of the households consulted, there was a boy or adolescent who dropped out of school in 2020. As there are 357,000 households, it is estimated that there could have been up to
694,000 Argentine students who dropped out of the system last year
.
With the return to face-to-face classes in 2021, a new opportunity opened, and in 8 out of 10 homes where students dropped out of school, families
reported that they returned to school
.
However, in the remaining 19% the boys did not return to class.
Steimberg also highlights that there were
strong disparities between regions
, with the
Northwest and the AMBA
at 29% and 26% respectively.
"This is due to the fact that there are more children in vulnerable contexts, with
social problems
that produced greater disengagement from school and an increase in the employment of these children and adolescents," Steimberg tells
Clarín
.
What to do to reverse this situation?
“We must ensure, in the remainder of the year,
the greatest possible presence
, focusing on the children who had little or no
presence
.
Also,
advance in the vaccination of teachers and non-teachers
: in the second doses.
And to strengthen the capacities of principals and teachers to
actively search for children who did not return
and to implement
new teaching strategies
for classrooms that are more heterogeneous than before, ”says Steimberg.
Unicef specialists presented the report on Wednesday to the education ministers of the entire country.
Steimberg says that there was a wide participation in the virtual meeting, where the work could be presented in detail.
Emotional impact
The research also focused on the emotional impact of the lack of presence.
Nine out of ten families highlighted that returning to the classroom
improved the mood
of the children in the home.
In the same proportion, adolescents stated that
they were happy to go back to school
and to meet their peers.
The authors also highlighted, among adolescents,
greater motivation with the study
and the completion of tasks.
A sample of the commitment of families and schools to presence is the high level of compliance with anti-Covid protocols.
In more than 90% of the homes they affirm that they are being respected.
Social deterioration
The UNICEF report also warns about
the deterioration of social and economic conditions
in homes due to the pandemic and the restriction measures.
38% of adults experienced situations of
job instability
(44% women).
56% saw their income reduced (3.5 million households).
The proportion of households that had to use a loan or credit to buy food grew (25%).
41% stopped buying some food due to lack of money (13 points higher than in October 2020).
With regard to technology,
one out of every two households does not have a computer for school use
.
Internet access through a fixed connection improved compared to 2020, however 1 in 5 households still cannot connect.
“The joint analysis of equipment and connectivity shows that, in 2021, 26% of households have an unfavorable situation: they do not have devices for school work or they do not have home Internet.
Additionally, the data show that 1 in 4 households whose children study exclusively remotely lack ICT resources ”, they affirm from Unicef.
The
UNICEF
report
"Impact of the pandemic on the education of children and adolescents"
, which was presented this Wednesday, is representative of the entire country and was carried out between April 24 and May 12 of this year.
It is the fourth installment of the same work that this organization has been doing since last year.