Mexico’s schools have been mostly shut since March last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and students are feeling the strain of months of attempted study at home.
A case in point is 16-year-old Yolanda (pictured) who is trying to learn in a 60 square-metre apartment she shares with her mother, Rosa; an elder sister; her sister’s partner; and their five-year-old son.
As well as the five people, there is a dog and noise from the busy road outside.
Yolanda’s bedroom is so chock full of her sister’s furniture that she barely has room to sit at her desk. She has to sleep in her mother’s bed.
Yolanda is in the final three years of school, known as preparatoria, but has felt tempted to give up.
She said it had been very difficult to learn anything and she struggled to focus during the 7am-to-1pm online classes.
“I’d like to stop studying till things get back to normal, but then I’d lose the year,” Yolanda said.
She used to be a determined, independent student, accustomed to getting on with her tasks on her own from an early age while Rosa, a lawyer and single mother, worked late.
However, over the past few months Rosa said she often found her daughter in bed with the quilt over her head — she just wasn’t interested.
Head teacher of a State secondary school located in a poor district of Mexico City, Tania Esquivel said that on average only 40 per cent of students had access to a computer, phone or tablet plus internet.
Ms Esquivel said the Government broadcast lessons on television and via an internet stream but while the transmissions reached most parts of the country, they did not necessarily reach most homes, with many families lacking internet access or even an electricity supply.
“The Government keeps reiterating that learning from home has been successful and is reaching every student,” Ms Esquivel said.
“I’m scared that this narrative is really jeopardising what we’ll see in future,” she said.
“We managed to ensure that 94 per cent of the students handed in something, one way or another, but what they did learn was a long, long way from what we’d have hoped for.”
Ms Esquivel said the other six per cent had proved impossible to contact, “we’ll see if they come back, but I’m not hopeful.”
Mexico City, 18 October 2021
