“The evidence shows that schools are not a source of contagion if biosafety protocols are followed,” said the agency.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) regretted this Wednesday that the Ecuadorian authorities have decided to stop the new phase of reopening schools due to the spread of the variant of the covid-19 omicron.
It’s a statement, Unicef considers that the closure “should be considered as a last measure” and recalls that “the evidence shows that schools are not a source of contagion if biosafety protocols are followed.”
The Ecuadorian Ministry of Education reported on Tuesday the postponement of the return to presence in those educational centers whose students had not returned to classrooms since the beginning of the pandemic due to the new variant of the covid.
In the announcement, the educational portfolio detailed that the postponement of dates implied that until February 7, 2022, the centers of the Sierra-Amazonía regime will not return to the presence with a capacity of 100%, while on May 3, the of the Costa-Galapagos regime, already for the new school year 2022-2023, which implies that the latter will continue in virtual until then.
And he clarified that both fiscal, fiscal, fiscal (concerted), private and municipal educational establishments that had already approved their Institutional Educational Continuity Plans (PICES), whose students were in face-to-face classes, will continue to attend their schools as they had been doing.
Likewise, students from 15 to 17 years of age from technical and rural schools who returned to physical classrooms on November 22 will continue in person with 100% capacity, with due monitoring of the health situation.
According to a recent monitoring carried out by the UN Children’s Fund, 70% of households with children and adolescents who are in face-to-face classes in Ecuador stated that the reopening has been a positive or highly positive process. .
The survey showed that 95% of these households know the protocols, and around 90% assured that they implemented measures such as the use of masks, physical distancing and hand washing.
According to the study, in 9 out of 10 homes, children have improved their mood with the return to school, and in 8 out of 10 families, schoolchildren feel more motivated to learn.
According to official data, the positives of covid-19 among students who have attended blended classes (which combine face-to-face with virtuality) represents 0.007%, that is, they represent 36 cases of 806,380 students.
At the beginning of November, the Minister of Education, María Brown, assured that 48% of educational establishments nationwide already work in face-to-face classes with reduced capacity, which represents around 675,193 students, and envisaged the mandatory return to presence in the December for all centers in the Sierra-Amazonía regime.
However, the new measures announced by the National Emergency Operations Committee (COE), the entity in charge of issuing the guidelines for the pandemic, will affect those schools that planned to return in December and January.
“We call on the COE to review the decision to postpone the reopening of schools. The risk of children not attending classes in person is too high and gets worse with each passing day, especially for the most vulnerable, who are more exposed to child labor, violence and exploitation, ”urged the representative in charge of UNICEF Ecuador , Juan Enrique Quiñónez. (I)
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