Effects of Covid-19 on Education and schools' Reopening in Latin America

Lockdowns around the world have forced governments to close schools for most of 2020 and they will probably remain closed in several areas and for some time until the end of 2021. Millions of children around the world will not have experienced classes in classrooms for an entire year or longer, which has disrupted their routines and educational cycles. In this chapter we discuss the impact of the pandemic and school closures on the schooling system in Latin America. A rapid shift to digital learning became necessary, but the basic infrastructure to support it was mostly absent, so school closures have exacerbated the digital gap both within and between countries. In Latin America, after decades of expansion of the public schooling system, the pandemic has offset the important progress in terms of poverty alleviation.