Mexico City, Mexico — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says that education will be declared a “super-essential” activity to guarantee the return to classes. Schools can no longer remain closed, he argued, saying that not opening classrooms will continue to affect the country’s young people.
“Of course, super essential. It is basic. It is fundamental. The truth is that we can no longer have children locked up or depending on Nintendo. That is very toxic. I am respectful of everything, but it is very alienating to be receiving all that bombardment of information, a lot of violence in games, but above all they are self-absorbed and human beings cannot live like this.
“We are eminently social. We have to live with others and that is what is achieved in school. That is why we learn, not only what is taught in teaching, but what is gathered from information, from the experience of other classmates, teachers, parents,” said the president in his morning press conference from Los Cabos, Baja Southern California.
López Obrador clarified that the return to classes will be optional, but it will seek to convince parents that it is necessary to restart the school year with face-to-face classes.
“It is optional (…) but Mexico, together with Bangladesh, are the two countries in the world who have kept schools closed the longest. It will affect us later,” he said adding that “school is the second home.”
As of August 8, the governor of Quintana Roo announced the start of the cleaning and restocking process of schools in anticipation for the return of face-to-face classes.
In order for that to happen, the education sector needs to be considered an essential activity. In turn, this means that the Ministry of Public Education can call the return of face-to- face classes despite a red epidemiological light.