“We are in an indefinite situation, in which we do not know what will happen, the sensible thing would be not to have done it, to wait for a second dose of the vaccine and the weeks where immunity is generated and only then to have returned,” says the specialist and academic Sebastián Donoso.
Daniel Jiménez, meanwhile, pointed out that it was necessary to have a greater space so that the protocols defined by the Ministry of Education were internalized and in this way they could be fulfilled more fully.
From different points of view, specialists from the University of Talca argue that the return to presence in schools today is complex and that it could be precipitated, considering factors such as transport, the rise in infections, and the lack of attachment of the population to abide by the sanitary measures that are required to reduce the number of cases.
In this sense, the director of the Institute for Educational Research and Development of the University of Talca, Sebastián Donoso, suggests that the return to classes comes at a complex time from the point of view of the rise in infections in the country. “We are in an indefinite situation, in which we do not know what is going to happen, the sensible thing would be not to have done it, to wait for a second dose (of the vaccine) and the weeks where immunity is generated and only then to have returned,” he says.
The education expert adds that it is necessary to be very alert to the indicators and contagion rates to establish measures in time, “do not wait for the figures to become absolutely critical to make decisions, when it is a bit late.”
Along the same lines, the epidemiologist and director of Student Health at UTalca, Daniel Jiménez, pointed out that this return is a giant challenge. “I think the epidemiological situation was not in place to do that so massively. (…) We are over 4 thousand cases a day with a health system that is once again reaching a limit ”, said the specialist, who explains that the vaccination plan will help to achieve a herd immunity, but this will only be taken into account. the months of June or July.
Agreements
In this context, Sebastián Donoso pointed out that it is vital that the entire educational community participate in decision-making. “They should have a system of dialogue installed between their families, teachers, managers, and owners, so that this can be very dynamic and not a unilateral process,” he says. In this way, have an agreement, for example with what contagion rate is suspended in person, if they will have frequent PCR controls or if there will be a follow-up if a case is generated.
Jiménez adds that this is compounded by the complexity of risk communication in the country, as well as the real capacity of the establishments to follow the protocols defined by the Ministry of Education: “These are strict and are well thought out from the point of view of from an epidemiological point of view, but from there to the application to reality, especially in the case of young children, it seems to me that it is a huge challenge from one day to the next, since it requires an awareness of the educational community ”.
Another complex factor is the one that will occur in public transport, where a high number of schoolchildren travel, who can be agents of direct or indirect contagion, “which we will not know for another couple of weeks,” according to Donoso .
Recover what was lost
Regarding the deficit that could be generated last year in relation to student learning due to the new format that they had to face the year, with all its difficulties, Professor Donoso argues that educational communities must be patient, since the correction of this will take a couple of years.
“Although this year we have a reasonable situation in the second semester, the recovery will be slow, and many things will not go back to the way they were before or the way they are now, so we will have to learn to function in an educational scheme that is different, which must be create and that we are still in the process of learning ”, emphasizes the academic.
