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Edgar Huitrón knows that if he cannot find a job in the next two weeks, he will have to drop out of university. The 22-year-old young man, a Public Accounting student at the private university Unitec in the municipality of La Paz, State of Mexico, does not have the resources to pay his tuition fees. The economic crisis derived from the pandemic has brought his academic plans to a halt. Until March of this year, the young man paid for his studies by selling quesadillas and gorditas with a position that he placed at fairs in communities such as Mixquic and Chimalhuacán. The virus turned off the lights of the amusement rides leaving him penniless, weeks later his father lost his job as a laborer. Without income, the payment of tuition has become a privilege and a burden: to date he owes about 6,600 pesos (about 300 dollars) for the current semester.
"A year ago I got the flu and my left lung was injured, what do I mean by this, that if I got the coronavirus I wouldn't tell about it," explains the young man who once considered studying medicine. His dreams of maneuvering a scalpel were dashed after two failed attempts to pursue a bachelor's degree at a public university, that's when his income as a food vendor at fairs gave him the opportunity to enroll in a private school. His skill with numbers ended up deciding his choice to accounting.
Now, in the middle of his career, the young man who lives in the municipality of Nezahualcóyotl, one of the most populated in the country, is one step away from abandoning his studies. “I have already put my health aside and I am moving to see if I can find a job, but I have not had a favorable response. I had the illusion of being an accountant, but with the pandemic I don't think it could be possible. I feel sad, I feel frustrated, it hurts to drop out of school because it has cost me a lot of work and because I don't have opportunities I am going to be forced to drop out ”, he admits. He is not the only one, only in this school year 305,089 university students left the classrooms, according to official statistics.
School dropouts are in the millions in Mexico. The Ministry of Public Education (SEP) estimates that around 2.5 million preschool, primary and secondary school students have left the classrooms during the health contingency. In a country where before the pandemic 15 out of 100 high school adolescents dropped out of school due to lack of resources or poor school performance, the pandemic threatens to aggravate the dropout phenomenon. The authorities have already announced that a follow-up program, agreements with other institutions and scholarships will be launched to tackle the problem. For Edgar these measures are only "good intentions", "promises". For him the equation is simpler: he will continue studying only if he gets a job.
The economic crisis derived from the coronavirus has caused a cascading reaction on private schools in Mexico. According to the National Association of Private Schools, four out of 10 private schools are in danger of closing permanently because of the pandemic, which means the cessation of some 18,000 establishments out of a total of 48,000 private educational centers in the country. Alfredo Villar, president of the Association explains that if at the beginning of the year some 6.5 million students were served in this type of school, the following school year enrollment could drop to 4.5 million students during the next school year . "Most of the students are entering public schools to take classes on television, which is why the official educational system is already oversaturated," he says.
Professor Miriam Perea, 43, has been one of the teachers affected by both desertion and the migration of students to the public sector. He taught preschool groups in a private school located in Tláhuac, south of Mexico City. She explains that of the 28 average children she was training, only four students had enrolled last July, a figure that made their continuity at school unfeasible.
"It gave me depression for a week, how ugly that because of a pandemic, it's not even because of your job, they fire you." Perea regrets that not even with the 20% discount on tuition fees, with a direct impact on her salary, has she managed to safeguard her job. However, she is confident that she will be able to get it back next year. "I love teaching and I hope with great faith that the work returns with the face-to-face classes," he said.
Like her, Jessica Elizalde, 33, was notified of her firing by phone earlier this month. A lawyer by profession, but a teacher by vocation, she taught since 2017 at the secondary level at the Nueva Santa María French School, located north of the capital. The reason was the same: the decrease in the school population by 50% compared to the previous school year. That same week, she adds, at least six more teachers were fired.
“It did affect me a lot. I can't stay still because my house is also having a bad time, there are three people out of work, I felt very bad because I said 'I'm the only one who was working,' she acknowledges. With the income he obtains from giving legal advice, Elizalde will seek to overcome the pandemic, however, he warns that he will not remove his finger from the line to continue teaching classes.
"This six-month lag is not recovered"
With more than half a million infected and more than 56,000 deaths from the coronavirus, the return to the classroom in Mexico has no date on the calendar. The Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has opted for television as the main vehicle of education. As of August 24, the main media networks will broadcast 4,550 television programs and 640 radio broadcasts with the content for 30 million pre-school, primary and secondary school students. A controversial proposal that has raised more doubts than certainties among student teachers, parents and education experts.
Elda Barrón, an expert in the training of foreign language teachers by the University of Cambridge and The Norwich Instute for Language Education, points out that although television is the only alternative that can be offered at the federal level under equal circumstances for all Mexicans pedagogically there will be an important lack. “This six-month lag is not recovered. The children of kindergarten and first and second of secondary school are losing in these six months their neurological window to develop communication skills, understanding, use and management of language and socialization ”, she said.
Marco Fernández, professor at the Tec de Monterrey School of Government and associate researcher from México Evalúa, indicated that the scholarship strategy promoted since the beginning of the López Obrador government is insufficient in the face of academic deficiencies and socio-emotional frustration derived from the pandemic . “Where the greatest dangers of dropping out are is in the third year of high school, upper secondary and higher because that is where the boys, to the academic and emotional reasons, add the economic reasons; many are having to go out to find a job to help out at home ”, he concludes.