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Ceibal Foundation presents the experience of distance education in Mexico
The OECD, the World Bank, Harvard University and the Finnish NGO HundrEd have published an article by Ceibal Foundation providing a systematic analysis of the program Aprende en Casa (Learning at Home), the pedagogical continuity plan carried out in Mexico during closure schools in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As in Uruguay, the pandemic forced the suspension of face-to-face classes in Mexico at all levels of education and transformed the programs into a distance learning solution. The programme Aprende en Casa was created by the Secretary of Public Education of Mexico in order to provide pedagogical continuity to more than 25 million students from preschool, primary and secondary education across the country.
The article, originally written in English by María Florencia Ripani, Director of the Ceibal Foundation, and Alessia Zucchetti, Project and Research Coordinator, collected the experience of the programme Aprende en casa (Learning at Home). This initiative began immediately after the closure of all schools nationwide. Its rapid deployment was possible because the backbone of the initiative was educational TV, a field in which Mexico has long-standing experience gained since the creation, in 1968, of Telesecundaria, a national literacy initiative based on TV programmes for secondary schools in rural and isolated areas.
The main component of the Aprende en Casa program was the development of audiovisual content, which was broadcasted across a network of TV stations and streamed through internet platforms. It included specific slots for each educational level, complemented with activities and assessment questions which were available online and delivered in print among unprivileged areas with no internet access.
One of the main challenges of the Mexico program was linked to its implementation in a remarkably short period of time. To achieve this, new public-private partnerships were made to gather educational resources, provide training to teachers for digital and distance development, and deliver 300,000 copies of printed educational materials.
The report reflects the potential of Mexico’s experience based on educational television and the generation of audiovisual resources, mainly in places with unequal internet access. It mentions the possibility of replicating this experience in other countries where access to online education is not possible, or even if they had investments in Internet infrastructure have not yet reached a high level of maturity of associated pedagogical services.
Evaluation of results
The monitoring of the results of the Aprende en Casa programme was based mainly on a national survey answered by more than 300 000 teachers and carried out jointly by the Secretary of Public Education and the National Labour Union of Education Workers (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación [SNTE]).
The survey showed that 82% of the teachers reported having weekly interactions with 9 out of 10 of their students, and 61% considered that the actions implemented to develop the educational programme were “good”, “very good” or “excellent”.
Regarding how the teachers accessed the content, the survey showed that 50.2% used their mobile phones, nearly 30%, other devices, 14.5%, television, and 0.3%, radio; while the rest depended on other instruments and materials.
The Ministry of Public Education plans to continue monitoring and evaluating the program after the reopening of schools.
Visit the Continuity Stories website on this link.
