Latin America’s silent tragedy of empty classrooms
FOR THE first time in more than a year, this month small groups of children with their backpacks and chatter have trooped into some schools in Mexico City. It is a cautious re-opening. It is up to schools whether or not they open, and only a minority have chosen to do so. Only part of the class attends each day. The same goes for 18 of Mexico’s 31 other states; in the others all schools remain shut. With the pandemic far from over, caution may be understandable. But among the living, children continue to be among its principal victims, in Mexico and across Latin America.
The region has been hit especially hard by covid-19 in three ways. With 8% of the world’s population it has suffered around a third of officially recorded deaths from covid-19 (and many more unrecorded ones). Its economies contracted by an average of 7% last year, worse than the world as a whole. Much less discussed is that Latin America’s schools have stayed shut for longer than those in any other region. The effects will be felt long after the pandemic is over and economies have recovered.
Schools closed nearly everywhere in the region in March 2020 and many have remained shut ever since. They are fully open only in six smaller countries. Some countries, such as Argentina and Colombia, began opening their schools earlier this year only to close them...