Guanajuato, Gto.- About 5.2 million public and private school students of all educational levels stopped enrolling in the 2020-2021 school year due to the Covid-19 pandemicwarned the organization Educacion con Rumbo.
Patricia Ganem, general coordinator of research carried out by the civil association, indicated that this figure makes Mexico the second country with the highest school dropout rate, only below Panama.
Ganem stressed that despite these statistics, the information system of the Secretary of Public Education (SEP), so it is not yet possible to know the situation in the country for the 2021-2022 school year.
He explained that before the pandemic, 30 percent of young people under the age of 17 were not attending school, hence Mexico It was already positioned as one of the countries with the highest dropout rates, which increased with the pandemic.
The researcher said that, in relative terms, Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica and Bolivia could have suffered the greatest losses, with dropout rates of 20 percent or more.
At the national level, he added, Mexico City ranks first in school dropout, with more than 93,000 students. They are followed by Puebla, State of Mexico, Veracruz and Guanajuato.
He specified that 670 schools were closed in CDMX, of which 474 were private, mainly preschools, although there are also some primary schools and to a lesser extent secondary schools. In the case of the State of Mexico, he added, 158 schools closed and 154 of them were private.
Ganem maintained that men were the most affected, since 2.8 million suspended their studies, mainly to support the family economywhile 2.5 million women left their studies to join household activities.
He pointed out that although there are various causes that generate school dropout, the most important is the lack of resources of families to meet the costs of education and an example of this is the inability of many students to access a computer and the Internet. during the pandemic.
Other causes, he said, are the lack of motivation and interest, learning problems, failure, family factors such as early pregnancy and social factors, such as distance from the educational center and even living in insecure areas.
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The specialist indicated that among the main consequences of dropping out of school are the loss of the quality of learning, the reduction of job opportunities and even delinquency, the consumption of toxic substances and problems of depression and anxiety.
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