Peru orders “compulsory return” of students to schools in 2022

The peruvian government ordered this Monday the “compulsory return” to classes in schools from March 2022, after two years of virtual education because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Vice Minister of Educational Management, Nelly palomino, reported that “the return to classes, with face-to-face or blended attendance, is mandatory” for the next school year, which will begin in March 2022, during a videoconference interview on Exitosa radio.

Classes in colleges and public and private schools were suspended in 2020 by the health emergency Y quarantine in the face of the pandemic of Covid-19.

Educational institutions must now design, based on their physical spaces and in compliance with biosafety measures, the schemes for returning to classrooms starting next school year, which in urban areas will be up to four hours a day and in areas rural full-time.

“It is not negotiable that parents have to send their children to school. The return is not voluntary but in compliance with the right to education,” said Palomino. “Just as we have to ensure the health of students, we also have to ensure the right to education,” he added.

The government expects to start vaccinating 3.7 million children between the ages of 5 and 11 next January, prior to returning to school.

The Andean country, with 33 million inhabitants, has the highest death rate from the pandemic in the world: 6,122 per million inhabitants.

Since March 2020, Peru has accumulated more than two million Covid-19 cases and more than 202,000 dead.