UNICEF Director: “Children need to go back to school. Variants or vaccines cannot be an obstacle to this ”| INTERVIEW

Almost two years after the explosion of the pandemic in coronavirus, some 71 million children and adolescents continue to be affected by the closure of schools in Latin America and the Caribbean. Peru, unfortunately, is one of the countries that has implemented blended presence the slowest and barely 6.5% have attended the classrooms and 7 million have yet to return.

The consequences of keeping children away from classrooms, far from protecting them from COVID-19, has exposed them to a precarious education, widened the social gap, affected their emotional and cognitive development and, worse still, made them drop out. of the educational system, in addition to exposing them to sexual and labor exploitation.

About this, El Comercio spoke with the regional director of Unicef ​​for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Honduran Jean Gough.

—The pandemic has meant a before and after for everyone in the world. What has been the main consequence for children in Latin America?

The pandemic has affected the entire world. From a health point of view, children are stronger due to their immune system, but for them the spaces have been closed, and one of those has been the space of education. They have been removed from their classrooms and you can imagine two years without going to school and the impact it has had on the life of a child, especially the most vulnerable sectors, who live in the most remote places and those who do not have access to technology. Nobody is denying the effort that governments have made, but I think that the educational system was not prepared for something of this magnitude. For this reason, we are advocating from the regional office for the reopening of schools, not only because the children have suffered with learning, but with their social development. For many children, even the only food they received was that of school, so there have been setbacks in nutrition indicators. Another aspect is the impact on children’s mental health, since school is a place where they socialize. Many schools, especially in the more remote areas, do not have the support of psychologists. The latest figure we have is of, and a large percentage of them have defected. Hey, they may not re-enroll. I was in an area of ​​Ucayali, and there the director of the education area told me that they have about 5,000 registered in schools, but that of those only 150 children were attending remote education.

Why have children been the least considered during the pandemic? For months, the priority discussion here was the shopping malls, the restaurants, the deliveries, while the children did not go to school and could not even play in the parks. Why were priorities upset in that way?

The adults thought they were protecting them from the impact of the pandemic. They thought that their educational systems did not have the biosecurity measures to make children go to schools, but we have seen all the world studies that say that schools are not the source of contamination, so we are advocating for that to happen. Another problem we saw is that there were no vaccines for teachers, but now most countries already have vaccines. Anyway, we can’t wait for everyone to be vaccinated to reopen schools.

– Does it have to do with the idiosyncrasy of the Latin American, this sense of overprotection from the adult side or lack of information?

In many countries, it is the middle class that speaks and children in this group are generally connected to the Internet and have been able to access remote education. But that is not for the majority of children, so the ones who need it most are the ones who have been excluded and are the ones who don’t have a voice. The system is complex, but we think that the best thing any government can do is reopen schools because. And even for the reactivation of the economy we need the schools to open, because many mothers and fathers were left without work because the schools are closed.

“Is there time to make amends?”

We are advocating for a system of leveling and acceleration of knowledge, especially in reading and mathematics in the initial grades and in high school. There is a lot of work to do there, and we discussed this with the Vice Minister of Education. So you have to think about expanded classes, so that leveling can be done every day, because we are widening the social gap instead of closing it.

We must also close the digital divide. I always think that technology can democratize education, but it can also increase that gap. So we are advocating that we continue to work together to ensure that children living in isolation also have access to the same quality of education as children in urban areas.

“What about the children who have already dropped out and are not likely to return?”

We are also campaigning for children to be sought out house to house, and really trying to engage and re-motivate them to go back to school. There is a whole strategy of active search for children who have dropped out in order to reintegrate them into the educational system.

—An issue that the pandemic has left with regard to children is that of sexual exploitation and minors who were locked up with their abusers. How is this issue being addressed by Unicef?

It is an alarming situation and one that the pandemic has accelerated. Even in many countries we have seen an increase in teenage pregnancy of girls between the ages of 10 and 14. In a country that I visited, they told me that in 2021 some 3,800 girls between the ages of 10 and 14 were pregnant, and I was alarmed. Figures are hard to come by, but the issue of sexual violence has increased in the region.

—How have you found the spirit of collaboration in the Peruvian State to improve the situation of children?

We met with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Deputy Minister of Education and with the head of Women and Vulnerable Populations. One of the topics we talked about was the reopening of schools, and they have already officially announced that they will reopen on March 1, but that is an issue for which we need to continue advocating so that other variants of the virus do not modify that date. Likewise, Unicef ​​values ​​vaccination and we celebrate that the doses have been acquired for children between 5 and 11 years old, but we do not want the lack of vaccines to be an obstacle to reopening. Children need to return to school with the necessary precautions, because it is important for the reactivation of the economy and for the mental health of minors, parents and society.