Mexico plans to hold school on television

MEXICO CITY — Distance learning will begin for more than 30 million Mexican school children Aug. 24, but a return to classrooms will remain an uncertain goal, the country’s education secretary said Monday.

Secretary Esteban Moctezuma Barragán and executives from the country’s largest television networks presented in broad strokes a plan to put educational instruction on television.

Moctezuma said that risks to in-person education continue being too high. Officials fear children could become coronavirus carriers, infecting relatives at home.

“We wanted to return to in-person classes, but it is not possible, nor prudent,” Moctezuma said.

Students will not return to classrooms until the government’s version of a stoplight to evaluate the pandemic’s risk is safely at green.

Mexico has reported more than 430,000 COVID-19 infections and nearly 48,000 deaths.

Throughout Latin America, nearly all schooling is being carried out online or through television as the pandemic continues to surge here. School districts around the world are struggling with the decision, knowing that for most students there is no substitute for in-person instruction.

Moctezuma cited several countries that opened schools and then had to close them as infections spread.

In Mexico, remote indigenous communities will be able to access instruction through government radio stations.

Moctezuma said television was a good option because government data shows 94 percent of homes have one. Some 140 million free textbooks will be distributed.

“It is returning to classes with all of the formality,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said. “This is not an emergency or transitory course. It is starting classes in accordance with the education plan.”