The National Union of Parents (UNPF) has warned that there is a latent risk that 214,716 students at the three educational levels in Acapulco will miss the school year due to the lack of educational facilities after the devastation left by the hurricane. Otis. The president of this organization that brings together parents in state and regional committees of the 32 states of the country, Israel Sánchez Martínez, has indicated that they foresee an educational crisis due to the lag that has been dragging on since the covid-19 pandemic. However, without basic services being fully restored –– including the electrical network and the Internet network, as well as the total losses of homes, household goods and electrical devices such as computers and mobile phones –– the head of the Ministry of Education , Leticia Ramírez, plans to resort to virtual classes to compensate for the educational gap of children and young people at all school levels (basic, middle and higher), who have lost, in addition to their most basic belongings, their educational centers.
Estimates of the damage are disparate, depending on who says it: the SEP reports 445 campuses affected, while the UNPF registers 1,200. These figures only include Acapulco and Coyuca de Benítez, two of the 46 municipalities of Guerrero. Tutors have equated the educational impact on the Pacific port as a second pandemic, even more serious due to food shortages for students. The UNPF spokesperson has called on the three levels of Government to work with the same speed to restore tourism and educational infrastructure.
Sánchez Martínez has considered the federal secretary’s proposal to be unviable. The students have lost their homes and suffer from significant deprivation. “There are no infrastructure or telecommunications conditions for the children to return in this modality and if they return, the families do not have the resources to take the classes. What we are anticipating is that the school year will be lost and we would have to see what strategies the Ministry of Education is going to use to recover the gap, which (the students) already had,” she commented in a telephone interview.
The representative of the parents has indicated that, according to the analysis carried out at the UNPF, at least 6,000 families in Acapulco require urgent food, housing and health care. The only way they see to save the school year is for 40% of the largest educational centers to be rehabilitated as soon as possible, so that the school year can resume at the end of January or beginning of February 2024. They propose two daily shifts to serve the largest possible enrollment while the rest of the campuses are rebuilt. “There are properties that can be restored in a maximum of 90 days, that is, at the end of January and beginning of February,” he says.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has assured that a percentage of tourism companies, mainly in the hotel industry, will be able to provide services next December, one of the seasons with the highest economic impact in the port until before Otis. Additionally, nearly 61,000 million pesos have been allocated for the recovery of Acapulco, however, parents warn that there are no projections for the reconstruction of educational centers because everything has been focused on economic reactivation. “In educational terms, it must be taken into consideration that just as it is necessary to reactivate the economy, tourism, and also the school year. For families it is important because the child needs attention during the work day. There has to be an emerging plan to restore schools as soon as possible,” says Sánchez Martínez.
The risk of losing the school year is not only due to the lack of classrooms, but also to the lack of economic and technical resources. For this reason, the UNPF has pointed out an increase in school dropouts that will worsen the educational gap in the port of Guerrero. “We predict a dropout, that they will lose this school year and that they will recover the next,” says the spokesperson. This Thursday, in an appearance by the Education Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, the head of the SEP was questioned by the opposition about the work she does in coordination with the State educational authorities to reestablish classes. In this regard, Leticia Ramírez said, without giving a date, that they have projected a gradual return while the educational facilities are rebuilt, as well as the possibility of students returning in virtual mode.
“According to the characteristics of the census we have carried out, the return to classes will be gradual and differentiated. During the pandemic we learned to work with other systems. We are going to work with a method where we can inform through technological media and networks. So that children who have not yet been able to return to classes have educational materials that allow them to continue advancing,” said the head of the SEP. In addition, she has assured that educational activities have already been resumed in some schools, the least damaged ones.
Parents have rejected Ramírez’s claims before Congress. The UNPF estimates that of the 1,224 educational centers at the basic, high school and higher levels, 1,200 have been damaged and require major intervention. “The schools all had a level of impact, but those that the authorities, directors and supervisors have reported as saying that we have to go check them because they have a greater impact, as of today there are 445, because we are working on it every day. . And the technical teams were already there to see what kind of damage they had and how we are going to do it,” the Secretary of Education said before the legislators.
The concern of parents goes beyond the recovery of the schools: the academic lag of the students is involved, which was exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic, to which is now added the period to rebuild Acapulco after the passage of the hurricane Otis. “Guerrero was one of the states where the most school dropouts were recorded in the pandemic, it was barely recovering. With this hurricane crisis they do not give us the conditions for them to recover. A comprehensive plan is required, for example, taking advantage of the summer and already having between 40% and 50% of the infrastructure so that children can reinforce their knowledge. What worries us parents the most is that they are going to waste the year and not learn. The proposal has already been made to the Secretary of Education, that they see that it is not only an issue of infrastructure, it adds three or even four times more to the educational gap. The loss of the school year is latent in Guerrero,” said the UNPF representative.
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