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Just two months after taking the reins of the Education portfolio, Claudia Ruiz Casasola (Izabal, 52 years old), the current minister of this area in Guatemala, was forced to close the 34,000 schools under her charge.
Since that March 15, the pandemic shook this country of medium development (HDI of 127 out of 196) with great challenges and pending accounts with children, who start working very soon and which the rural world takes its toll.
The teacher, with more than 28 years of service in the Public Education System, faced the coordination of the remote study of almost four million students with very different needs and resources and 136,000 teachers.
The ministry acted quickly.
And thanks to a successful food delivery plan, which supplied the service of the dining rooms, and a delivery of printed materials for all grades and in all educational centers, the enrollment rate was maintained.
"It is a historical fact and we know that the school became a support and in this way of bringing food to very needy houses," he explained at the doors of the ministry a couple of weeks ago.
This also became a set during the first months of the pandemic.
In corners of the garden and in disused ministerial rooms, dozens of volunteer teachers began to be summoned to record lessons that are still regularly broadcast today on public channels and local radios.
These materials were prepared in nine of the 22 national languages of the country and “always thinking of children with special needs”.
The technique was perfected and currently six spaces in the building have been adapted for this work and a professional recording team coordinates hundreds of teachers - some disguised as clowns, others carrying colorful notes or with instruments under their shoulders - who in their Videos also remind you of the importance of using a mask and how to wash your hands.
"The ministry is more about teachers than ever," says Casasola positively.
In a nation in which five of the 22 departments have less than 20% access to the electricity grid, the obstacles accumulated.
“Everything can be improved, but if we can highlight something about this crisis, it is that the teachers have been key in the solution.
And they have been listened to ”, the minister stressed minutes before participating in the launch of the National Campaign for the Protection of Children and Adolescents this past Friday at the National Palace.
On the roof of the imposing building located in the heart of the capital and behind a pink mask that matches her silk blouse, Casasola celebrates the first week of this long-awaited return to school "without contagion, thank God", but without forgetting pending challenges.
Ask.
It's been a week since the schools reopened after almost a year, have any contagions been reported?
Answer.
Thanks God no.
The structure has worked and we have no contagion.
The schools received their financial allocation to buy masks, alcohol gel and their resources for the purchase of school supplies.
We are very happy because despite the fact that we are a country with great challenges, the return to class has occurred in an orderly manner.
Although there are schools that do not have the necessary conditions and will continue at a distance.
More information
When school is a memory: the dramatic reality of 97% of children in Latin America and the Caribbean
School, an obstacle course
“Covid-19 has shown the vulnerability of education.
We are facing an existential problem and we cannot hesitate anymore "
Q.
Your Government has made an effort to reform more than 1,700 schools that did not have toilets or water, but there are still about 8,000.
What will happen to them?
The directives of the face-to-face return do not contemplate under any circumstances those who do not have this sanitation, although the incidence of the virus is minimal ...
A.
We received an abandoned school infrastructure and health system.
Due to the covid-19, it was necessary to speed up health matters and also the recovery of schools.
The two areas have been prioritized by the President [Alejandro Giammattei, from the Vamos party], in order to meet social needs.
In the case of education, as you yourself have said, these schools have been recovered thanks to the action of the Government, teachers, municipalities and the cooperation of entities such as Unicef.
Among all.
Yesterday, for example, I met with all the mayors of Alta Verapaz and we prioritized this issue.
These alliances are to continue recovering the rest, municipality by municipality.
We are creating alliances to continue recovering the rest of the schools without water or toilets, municipality by municipality.
P.
After a hard year of management, the schools are finally reopening.
How was the reception of the children?
A.
We are very happy, because children need to socialize and school is also a safe environment for them.
Our task is for that and we have worked with the teachers to make sure of it, that they return to the schools with all the biosecurity measures.
We have made great efforts so that the 2.5 million pupils [from kindergarten and primary school, which are the ones who return to school] return safely.
It is a great challenge but we are organized.
We have a good care plan for emergency care and all the will and commitment to continue responding to them.
And above all we had hurricanes Eta and Iota.
That made us have a lot of presence at local levels.
And thanks also to the help of Unicef, we managed to enter even the last community and be present.
Some of the children we met in the communities told us: "As school authorities we also want to tell you that it is urgent for us to go back to schools."
And we realized that in that village of Petén, for example, there had never been a case of covid.
There were no reasons for the children to be locked up.
Q.
Your ministry produced printed self-study guides that were distributed periodically during the pandemic year to nearly 34,000 schools.
However, some of the teachers with whom we have spoken tell us that they had to adapt them or even create their own material like this one that I show you, because their students did not understand them.
Do you plan to update them with this in mind?
A.
We do not work alone.
We work with the education cluster of which the country's universities are part.
And what we created were the guidelines for the children to also use the books they had at home.
What you show me is not unknown to us, because the teachers have worked with us, it is a strategy of curricular concretion on the guides that we deliver.
Last year no country was prepared to deal with the emergency.
What made the difference was the leadership of the teachers, who have worked on the curricular adaptation;
because we have different social contexts, cultures and languages.
Many teachers even adapted bicycles to reach the communities or reached the backyards of the houses and taught from a distance.
It is the year that we had the fewest dropouts because the teachers did not sit idly by.
The materials were made thinking that teachers could do things like this.
Q.
But they were self-study guides, right?
R.
For the great.
For the little ones, guidelines were given, which could be supplemented with introductory books to literacy, to learn to draw the lines ... But the self-study guides are for upper grades of primary school.
P.
Precisely this that I show you is a material personally adapted by a teacher for her sixth grade children.
A.
Well, yes ... Four units are developed in the modules, which was the consensus we reached with the teachers for this year.
And these materials were worked with lessons developed on television and radio, in various languages.
The current modules that were validated with 66 teachers represented nationally.
These teachers already validated the one that is being delivered right now as a review for last year.
Next year's modules are to consolidate learning and get back to normal.
And we are going in that process, although we know that everything can be improved.
If we can highlight something about this crisis, it is that they have been key in the solution.
And they have been heard.
Many teachers even adapted bicycles to reach the communities or reached the backyards of the houses and taught from a distance
Q.
We are assisting in the preparation of radio and television material that began to broadcast from practically the beginning of the pandemic.
It was a quick and unusual response from his ministry, however there are several departments where most households do not have access to electricity.
In Alta Verapaz, for example, more than 55% of the houses do not reach.
R.
I do not know where you got that information.
Did a power company or the ministry give them to you?
P.
These are data from the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
R.
And what dates is the study?
P.
These are figures from 2018.
R.
Ah, well.
Anyway, I'm going to tell you something.
Our strategy is not designed for children who have electricity;
but for children in remote rural areas.
And our materials are printed for everyone, no matter where they are.
You are not going to see us in urban areas, but in rural areas.
Working.
So, for us the priority is printed materials, that children do not have energy is not an obstacle.
Television and radio are a complement.
Q.
You have been a teacher for more than 20 years and you know the effort of teachers well.
This year, it has multiplied so that this was not a lost course.
In the reopening of schools, it is they who will have to summon parent by parent every two weeks to summon their children according to the selected group.
What can be done to reduce this workload?
R.
I reiterate, we are working together with the mayors to help us with the communication strategy.
Our departmental addresses too;
there is a communicator in each direction.
The teachers have done a great job, I repeat.
But as incredible as it may seem, the population manages the information of the contagion traffic lights.
Not all teachers will have to mobilize into the homes of nearly four million students.
Actually, I think you are making it very dramatic.
Really yes, because the communities are very well organized, we have 20,000 parent organizations and they are also coordinated ...
Q.
I send you concerns that the teachers have sent us.
For example, one of the teachers in the 8,000 multigrade schools [in which the director is the only teacher in the center and they teach all the courses] told us that she is afraid of catching it, in case that means closing the school again.
Have you considered a plan B in these cases?
A.
Those are small schools and in remote communities.
Q. There
are 8,000 small schools ...
For us, the priority is printed materials, that children do not have energy is no obstacle.
Television and radio are a complement.
A.
Yes, but we have not had cases of covid-19.
Rural areas have not been affected and that is what we have sat down to see with Unicef.
We couldn't wait any longer and that the children were limited in their classes in places with low incidence.
I wish he had had interviews with credentialed and certified teachers who are the ones who really move the leadership of the country.
Because we have carried out hard work in the sector, in which no teacher has skimped on schedules, but neither have the authorities.
Yesterday, for example, I finished in Cobán at 8:00 p.m. and we left, when?
[she asks the secretaries who accompany her and they record the interview with her] At 1.00.
And we were reviewing the monitoring of the day.
What I would highlight from this experience is that COVID-19 came to distance society, less in the education sector.
In schools, the distancing was only physical, but there was a lot of unity.
Q.
Returning to the issue of multigrade schools, is there a plan in case a teacher or a child gets infected?
R.
It is in the protocols and these children are practically a bubble, because they are small communities.
But yes, they would all be quarantined.
P.
What will be your strategy so that especially girls do not leave school as soon as they graduate from primary school?
The desertion in this group is high, since many become pregnant or simply dedicate themselves to housework.
A.
There are special programs for girls.
We are working together with the Ministry of Public Health, Economy and with the business sector.
But I will tell you that we have had a scholarship program for women in which 189 ladies enrolled to learn English with job opportunities.
Today we start a protection campaign and I am personally locating the girl leaders by region to make them more visible.
And we are bringing the minors who have become pregnant back through an after-school education modality.
It is one of the star actions of the President for girls and women.
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