Early Opening of Schools in Uruguay During the Covid-19 Pandemic
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1 EARLY OPENING OF SCHOOLS IN URUGUAY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. EARLY OPENING OF SCHOOLS IN URUGUAY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC OVERVIEW AND LESSONS LEARNT Early opening of schools in Uruguay during the Covid-19 pandemic. Overview and lessons learnt United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF Uruguay Authors: Anahí Alarcón, Centro de Informaciones y Estudios del Uruguay [Uruguayan Information and Research Centre] (CIESU) Gustavo Mendez, CIESU Coordinated by UNICEF: Dario Fuletti, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist Julia Perez, Education Officer CIESU/UNICEF partnership Copy editor: Maria Cristina Dutto Design and layout: harto_estudio First edition: September 2020 Cover photo: © UNICEF-UY/2020/Alva Cover photo and other images used in this report were taken in School n.º 73 of San Pedro, Colonia, a few days after face-to-face classes resumed. UNICEF Uruguay Bulevar Artigas 1659, 12 Floor Montevideo, Uruguay Phone. (598 2) 403 0308 E-mail: [email protected] CONTENTS List of Abbreviations and Acronyms .................................................................... 4 Foreword ............................................................................................................. 5 Executive summary ............................................................................................. 6 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 8 I. General description .......................................................................................... 9 1.1. Description of the population of Uruguay and the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic ............................................................................. 9 1.2. Brief description of the Uruguayan education system ............................ 14 1.3. Overview of primary education in Uruguay ............................................ 19 1.4 Plan Ceibal and connectivity in Uruguay ................................................. 21 Stages of Plan Ceibal .................................................................................... 21 1.5 Context: Change of national government ................................................ 22 II. Organizing the resumption of face-to-face education .................................... 23 2.1 An overview of the process .....................................................................23 Honorary Scientific Advisory Group (GACH) ..........................................26 2.2 Planning the return and the options established ..................................... 27 2.2.1 Reopening of rural educational centres .........................................29 2.2.2 Reopening of urban educational centres .......................................30 2.3 Conditions and measures for reopening ................................................. 33 2.3.1. Condiciones sanitarias .................................................................33 Definition of types of contact with SARS-CoV-2 virus ............................35 2.3.2 Technical-pedagogical conditions ..................................................38 III. Assessment, learning and challenges in the return to school process ......... 40 3.1 A preliminary assessment ....................................................................... 40 3.2 Some lessons learned ............................................................................. 42 3.3 Early warnings and challenges ............................................................... 43 3.4 The key to resuming face-to-face education ........................................... 44 References consulted ........................................................................................ 46 Annex ................................................................................................................ 51 4 EARLY OPENING OF SCHOOLS IN URUGUAY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ANEP Administración Nacional de Educación OPP Oficina de Planeamiento y Presupuesto Pública [National Public Education (de Presidencia de la República) [Office Administration] of Planning and Budget (Presidency of the Republic)] CIESU Centro de Informaciones y Estudios del Uruguay [Uruguayan Information and PCR Polymerase chain reaction Research Centre] RSV Respiratory syncytial virus CEIP Consejo de Educación Inicial y Primaria [Pre-primary and Primary Education RT-PCR Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain Council] reaction COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 SARS-COV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 CSEU Coordinadora de Sindicatos de la Enseñanza del Uruguay [Uruguayan SOMERUY Sociedad de Medicina Rural del Uruguay Teaching Unions Council] [Uruguayan Rural Medicine Society] CSSE Center for Systems Science and TEP Trabajadores de la Educación Primaria Engineering at Johns Hopkins University TIC tecnologías de la información y la ECLAC United Nations Economic Commission for comunicación Latin America and the Caribbean UDELAR University of the Republic FUM Federación Uruguaya del Magisterio [Uruguayan Teaching Federation] UMAD Unidad de Métodos y Acceso a Datos (de la FCS, UDELAR) GACH Grupo Asesor Científico Honorario [Honorary Scientific Advisory Group] UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization GDP Gross domestic product UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund INAU Instituto del Niño y Adolescente del Uruguay [Uruguayan Institute for Children UTEC Universidad Tecnológica del Uruguay and Adolescents] [Technological University of Uruguay] INEEd Instituto Nacional de Evaluación UTU Universidad del Trabajo del Uruguay Educativa [National Institute for (former name of the Technical and Educational Evaluation] Vocational Education Council) ITU International Telecommunication Union 5 EARLY OPENING OF SCHOOLS IN URUGUAY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. FOREWORD The COVID-19 crisis is a major challenge to achieving In the context of what could be considered a successful human rights worldwide and, in this particular case, management of the pandemic, Uruguay has been to achieving economic, social and cultural rights. one of the first countries in the world to reopen its Worldwide school closures have made it particularly educational centres and return to the classroom, difficult to maintain the progress made in the education, combining this with remote education. This process protection and well-being of children and adolescents. has taken place in an innovative, gradual and phased First, the likelihood that children will not return to school manner. The return was not organized by grades, as in increases the longer they are out of school, especially other countries, but instead prioritized dimensions such among those from more vulnerable households. as geographic density, the educational vulnerability Second, the lockdown situation generates stress of students and completion of educational cycles, in within families and increases the risk of children and addition to considering the health conditions of the area adolescents suffering or witnessing violence in the in question and of the educational centres themselves. home. Third, the closures make it difficult to access services that schools regularly provide, such as food It is a privilege to be able to share this systematization and psychosocial support. For all the above reasons, with decision makers, researchers, teachers, students the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has and citizens more widely. We hope that the lessons promoted a reopening of schools worldwide, provided learned can be used as an input when preparing the that this is done under safe conditions and takes response to future critical situations and will help into account the health measures issued by the identify innovative policies that can be sustained and corresponding authorities. deepened once the pandemic is over. Finally, I hope that other countries will be able to draw on the The Uruguayan education system’s response to the Uruguayan experience to identify their own challenges health and education emergency has been extremely and to plan and implement a return to education. interesting and exemplary. The presence of Plan Ceibal throughout the country, together with the provision of free Internet services, made a high level of connectivity possible for students and their teachers. The rapid way in which the School Feeding Programme was adapted to the emergency situation, together with the presence of teaching teams in the regions, supporting the educational continuity of the most vulnerable students and assisting their colleagues in the use of new technologies, were also key elements in surviving Luz Angela Melo Castilla this first stage of lockdown. UNICEF Representative, Uruguay 6 EARLY OPENING OF SCHOOLS IN URUGUAY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In light of the emergency situation created by COVID-19, The resumption of face-to-face classes in Uruguay was the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has joined established as voluntary, staged and gradual. This voluntary efforts to safeguard the rights of children and adolescents nature was in line with the way in which the national that have been most affected by the pandemic. Given government implemented the emergency measures, that Uruguay is the first country in the region to resume encouraging rather than forcing people. When establishing face-to-face classes, it was considered relevant to analyse the different stages, health criteria were combined with a the process with the aim of drawing