The Minister of Education, Maruja Gorday de Villalobos, reported that 983 schools teach classes under the blended modality or through tutorials, which leads students to attend school between two and three days per week.
Statistics from the Ministry of Education specify that of this total, 944 are official and 39 are private. There are 3,933 schools in the country.
‘I hope one day to return to daily face-to-face classes’
At the end of July, the Ministry of Education (Meduca) plans to have 27% of all official and private schools in the country open under the modality of blended teaching or tutorials.
That represents a thousand 79 schools out of 3 thousand 933. At the moment, some 353 schools are teaching blended classes and in another 630 tutorials are given, which implies that the student must go between two and three days a week, to the school.
What do students say about the reality that they live with this new teaching method every day because of the pandemic?
Ximena, an eighth-grade student from a private school in the district of Panama, said that in her case, for almost a year and a half she has received online classes, and recently began blended classes.
The Meduca enacted the Executive Decree 435 of April 13, 2021, which regulates blended classes in Panama and the conditions that educational centers must meet for gradual return. Through the norm, it was established that classes under this mechanism would begin on May 31.
Ximena says that the blended classes have the same content as the online classes. What changes is the dynamics: half of the students in his class are in Zoom, and the other half go to the classroom.
“The classes for both groups are the same, with the same teachers, but we don’t always do the same activities,” he said.
For example, he recalled that one day they had to use microscopes in science class, which was obviously more exciting for students who were in person in the lab.
“While those in the room felt like scientists with the microscopes, the students at home were doing a practice. Luckily, these students had to go to school the next day, ”he said.
Ximena is responsible for attending her school on Mondays and Wednesdays, as well as one Friday every two weeks.
In addition to the new way of teaching, she is also responsible for dealing with the risks of Covid-19. In this context, he stressed that almost a week ago it was discovered that there was a positive case in his grade, so all eighth had to comply with a 14-day quarantine at home. If any student wanted to return to the classroom, they had to show a negative result of a PCR test.
At recess and while talking to his friends, he explains that he keeps his distance and only lowers his mask to eat or drink water. About which teaching modality she prefers, the young student left no doubts: “in my opinion, face-to-face classes are better, but if something like a case of Covid-19 happens in my promotion or a rise in cases, it is better to stay at home … I hope one day to be able to return to face-to-face classes every day ”.
The indicators
The Minister of Education, Maruja Gorday de Villalobos, reported that the back-to-school process is progressing gradually and taking into account the indicators of the Ministry of Health (Minsa) on Covid-19.
Gorday de Villalobos said that they are being handled with “great caution” at the moment, due to the information that is emerging about a third wave and the contagion rates in certain educational regions.
He specified that, for prevention, some schools in Herrera were closed due to the increase in cases in that province. In addition, he reported that to date 2,861 Covid-19 committees have been formed in schools, which is equivalent to 73% of all schools in Panama.
The committees are working groups within schools, which are in charge of defining and applying specific actions to reduce the risk of contagion of the coronavirus within schools.
This weekend, directors of 377 schools in the Ngäbe Buglé region and Meduca officials review the biosecurity protocols in that region, for the progressive and safe return of students to these educational centers.
In the words of epidemiologist Arturo Rebollón, classes should not stop and the recommendation is that the return to the classroom should be hybrid, gradual and voluntary.
His message is clear: “in Panama there are no clusters or outbreaks of infected by schools giving classes and children have to see, touch and hear to learn.”
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