by Steven Grattan and Monica Machicao
LA PAZ/SÃO PAULO (Reuters) – In La Paz, Bolivia, Maribel Sánchez’s children have spent most of the past two years leaning on a small smartphone screen and watching online lessons during a long lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. coronavirus.
Two boys, aged 11 and 8, often missed classes when the schedule conflicted because there was no computer in the family. Bolivian children finally returned to face-to-face classes in March of this year, many still part-time.
A story that resonates across Latin America, from Mexico to Brazil.
The region has one of the worst school closure records on the planet, according to a World Bank report showing children shutting schools completely or partially for almost 60 weeks between March 2020 and March this year.
It is second only to South Asia and is twice the number of countries in Europe, Central and East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa or the Pacific Rim. There have been prolonged partial closures in North America, but only seven weeks of total closures compared to 29 in Latin America and the Caribbean.
According to some experts, this risks a decade-long decline in education levels for children in the region, putting pressure on income and employment prospects for years to come.
?In virtual classrooms, children did not learn anything. Their attention was distracted. My first-grade son didn’t learn anything. said Sanchez as he waited to pick up his son in front of a school in La Paz.
Emanuela di Gropello, a researcher at the World Bank, said children in Latin America will experience a 12% drop in lifetime earnings during the pandemic due to educational differences.
“There will basically be a long-term decline in wages for these young people entering the workforce,” he said.
Mercedes Porto of the Cimientos Foundation, which works with youth in Argentina, said that the school system “disappeared”. Because 1 million young people did not return to schools after the virtual lessons period.
Andrés Uzin Pacheco, an education specialist and academic director at a business college in La Paz, said the impact would be lasting and severe.
“This generation will suffer the consequences for their entire education and professional life, not just for the next five years, but for the next 20-30 years, even in college,” he said.
(additional reporting by Horacio Soria)
source: Noticias
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