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School closures: the challenge that COVID-19 has imposed on the educational systems of Latin America and the Caribbean

April 14, 2020 por Madiery Vásquez - Marcela Ortiz - Horacio Álvarez Marinelli - Elena Arias Ortiz - Marcelo Pérez Alfaro - Andrea Bergamaschi Leave a Comment


Rosita looks through the window of her house in Guayaquil and remembers her school, her teacher, and her classmates. She does not understand why she can no longer go out to play with her friends in the neighborhood or visit her grandmother, nor why her father has not come to visit her in almost a month. Her mother has told her she needs to study and do homework following instructions on the television. She is part of the 95% of students affected by the closure of schools in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) due to the new coronavirus pandemic.

With this emergency, the dynamics between education communities and families have changed: teaching and learning processes, and social and extracurricular support. In the immediate term, the challenge of maintaining healthy education communities is being met by closing schools and providing school meals through alternative means. Now, steps must be taken to ensure:

  1. The student-teacher and family-school bonds
  2. Delivery of content aligned to the school curriculum
  3. Accompaniment and monitoring of the learning process.

What measures have countries taken to continue educational services? The solutions have depended on pre-existing infrastructure and available content to enable countries to quickly put together distance education models.

Uruguay was the only country in the region that was able to transition to virtual classrooms, having managed to close the digital divide, even with the challenge of reaching the most vulnerable students and with limited connectivity.

Chile made a strong showing with academic content (e.g. texts, guides and digital libraries), and began to distribute material through different means, from the Ministry of Education’s website to printing content in local newspapers.

In Peru, existing digital content was aligned to the school curriculum and is broadcast on TV and radio, in addition to educational programming such as Sesame Street.

Costa Rica is using “Aprendo en Casa” (Learning at Home), combining digital platforms with the transmission of educational content on TV, radio and Facebook, and is establishing an alliance with Microsoft to make their package of Communication platforms available to students and teachers.

In The Bahamas, internet access is being expanded so that all students can use the government’s digital learning platform, which will have new content and livestream classes; the Ministry of Education will send printed materials to students in areas with no connectivity.

Looking beyond LAC, Italy, Spain and China present examples of collaboration with other public and private actors to face the impacts of the pandemic on the education sector: in Italy, the public television agreed to modify its programming to provide more educational and cultural content; in Spain, the Ministry of Education and the Spanish Television began to transmit educational content through television, while in China, with the support of the Ministry of Industry and Technology, telecommunications companies and Internet providers contributed 7,000 servers and expanded the 90 terabyte bandwidth. The telephone companies improved their coverage in rural areas.

Countries are facing the challenge of prioritizing the curricular content and disseminating it through mass media to reach the entire student population in a timely manner. One-way transmission of educational content through TV, radio, digital material, and print, should be complemented by communication channels that bring students closer to teachers. Most of the countries chose to combine these different mediums, including learning platforms, digital content, TV, radio and physical material (see graph below), since, with the exception of Uruguay, most were not prepared to offer all their classes through digital platforms to all their students.

In LAC, more than 80 million students depend on school feeding programs, which represent an important transfer for families. These programs continue in 14 countries in the region. The main challenge has been to minimize the risk of exposure to COVID-19 during food delivery. For this reason, some countries like Chile are using protocols for the preparation and delivery of food. Countries are considering delivery models to homes and in schools.

In addition to guaranteeing continuation of education during the suspension of classes, the pandemic imposes new needs for the reopening of schools, from cleaning and hygiene measures to school accompaniment programs. What are other upcoming challenges that our education systems will face?

  • take care of the social-emotional well-being of students and teachers: education systems play a fundamental role in the protection of children and youth. Countries should provide support for the socio-emotional well-being of students and teachers during and after school closures;
  • guarantee inclusive continuation of education: the emergency may accentuate pre-existing learning gaps between different socioeconomic groups. In the short term, it is necessary to guarantee that the curricular contents reach the most vulnerable population and monitor their learning. In the medium term, additional reinforcement or support programs may be necessary;
  • give attention now to the issue of the reopening of schools: the interruption of classes can lead to a higher percentage of students dropping out of school; this must be minimized, and measures should be taken to level the learning of more vulnerable groups. Likewise, it is necessary to ensure that schools have the minimum infrastructure and health conditions to allow a safe return to face-to-face classes.

There is still no certainty about the amount of time that schools will remain closed. According to authorities, the health emergency may last for several months. The urgency of the continuation of education from home will gradually give rise to the need for planning for the reopening of schools. It is essential to start this planning now.


Filed Under: Educational systems, English, Infrastructure and educational technology

Madiery Vásquez

Madiery es consultora en la División de Educación del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Trabaja en la agenda de transformación digital de la educación en América Latina y el Caribe, con un enfoque en los sistemas de información y gestión educativa. Anteriormente trabajó en investigaciones y operaciones de préstamos en temas de pobreza, salud, protección social, seguridad social y género del BID. Madiery es economista del Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo de la República Dominicana.

Marcela Ortiz

Marcela Ortiz es consultora de la División de Educación en la representación en Chile desde agosto 2016. Marcela cuenta con más de 10 años de experiencia en el sector educativo, en donde se ha desempeñado en proyectos vinculados a desarrollo de capital humano avanzado, evaluaciones internacionales de aprendizaje, políticas docentes, y financiamiento y gestión de la educación. Antes de su incorporación al BID, Marcela trabajó en el Instituto de Estadística de la UNESCO (UIS), la Oficina Regional de Educación para América Latina y el Caribe (OREALC/UNESCO), Elige Educar, el Ministerio de Educación de Chile, y la Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT). Marcela tiene título de Socióloga de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, y una maestría en Administración Pública (doble titulación) de la London School of Economics and Political Science y Sciences Po.

Horacio Álvarez Marinelli

Horacio Álvarez Marinelli is a senior education specialist. He joined the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in July 2008 and is currently working at the IDB Country Office in Panama. Before being assigned to Panama, he was in charge of the education portfolios of Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. Horacio served as Financial Director of the Programa Nacional de Autogestión para el Desarrollo Educativo of the Ministry of Education of Guatemala. He has also served as Officer in Charge of Finance and Accounting and Secretary of the Pension Fund of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, based in Geneva, Switzerland. Subsequently, from 2004 to 2008, he was Advisor to the Office of the Minister of Education, in charge of the modernization of the Planning and Finance Area and Director of Educational Planning of the Ministry of Education of Guatemala. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics and a Master's degree in Administration and Public Policy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, under the auspices of the Fullbright scholarship.

Elena Arias Ortiz

Elena Arias Ortiz is a Senior Education Specialist. She joined the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in 2011 as part of the Young Professional Program. Her first rotation was in the Competitiveness and Innovation Division. Since then, she has been part of the Education Division. Before joining the IDB, she previously worked as a consultant for the World Bank, UNDP, and the European Commission. Elena holds a Master Degree in Economic Analysis and a Ph.D. in Economics, both from the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Her research focuses mainly on the development of skills and the transition of student to higher education and the workplace and the use of digital tools to improve learning. Her publication record includes international peer-reviewed journals.

Marcelo Pérez Alfaro

Marcelo Pérez Alfaro is a Lead Education Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). He joined the Bank in 2003 and worked in the Country Offices of Suriname, Ecuador, Brazil and Uruguay, in addition to developing projects and policy dialogue in Chile, Argentina and the Dominican Republic. He has extensive experience in leadership and management of the strategic and budget planning of large social programs and agencies, such as the National Social Security Administration and the National Institute of Social Services for Retirees and Pensioners of Argentina. Marcelo has a Master's degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a Postgraduate degree in Economics from the Di Tella Institute, and a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the Universidad Católica Argentina.

Andrea Bergamaschi

Andrea Bergamaschi has been a Senior Education Specialist at the IDB since 2014. Before joining the Bank, she worked for 11 years in civil society organizations generating initiatives and alliances between the public and private sectors in the areas of formal and informal education, gender, sustainable development and social business. During her time at Todos Pela Educação in Brazil, she led advocacy projects working with national and international government organizations and coordinated research on the use of technologies in education. She co-founded REDUCA, a Latin American network of advocacy organizations to improve the quality of education in the region. Andrea has a master’s degree in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science, specialization studies from New York University and a degree in Social Communication from the Cásper Líbero School of Social Communication, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

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Education In Focus

"Education In Focus" is the Education Division's blog, a space where our specialists and guest authors share their reflections, experiences and knowledge to promote informed discussions on educational issues among policy makers, experts, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders. Our goal: to provide insights to public policies that guarantee effective and quality education for all children and young people in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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