Schools will operate with 100% capacity, but masks will be mandatory inside the classrooms

The Ministry of Education announced that schools nationwide will operate with 100% of their capacity and that distancing within classrooms will be eliminated, but the use of masks will be maintained in the classroom and during recreation hours.

During the press conference of the Council of Ministers, the Minister of Education, Rosendo Serna, expressed the commitment of his sector to offer all the facilities to the Ministry of Health (Minsa) to achieve 100% vaccination of teachers and schoolchildren in the country.

According to the minister, the use of the mask in educational institutions will continue to be a fundamental safety requirement. Teachers must also prove that they have received all three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and, in the case of students, have at least two doses of the vaccine.

In addition, a complementary protocol will be published, which will establish various guidelines, such as the permanent ventilation system that schools must have and the adaptation of schools to function as vaccination centers for students during school hours, subject to the authorization of parents or parents.

“We will shortly be issuing the complementary protocol setting out the leadership of the directors of public and private educational institutions, fulfilling this role is important to ensure two fundamental aspects of the policy being developed by the current management, which are vaccination and safety in schools and colleges,” said Serna.

With these new provisions, teachers will not have to teach the same class to two groups of students in a single educational day, which has been done since the beginning of the 2022 school year. In addition, the head of Minedu noted that in rural areas, face-to-face classes were already taking place with full capacity.

“The decentralized bodies of the sector will ensure compliance with this standard because surveillance and security are required to be permanent, and the UGEL and the regional directorates of education will be responsible for monitoring 100% face-to-face in public and private institutions”, said the minister.

The minister highlighted the efforts that teachers have been making to comply with the immunization process and resume face-to-face classes in Peru, as well as the work of health personnel who risked their lives to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

On the other hand, he noted that the new rule on teacher reassignments and swaps, published on the same day, was an aspiration of many teachers who were looking for greater opportunities for their displacement. He specified that the rule will allow 100% of teachers to be reassigned in stages and once all places have been filled, the appointment process will only begin.

The desire for all pupils to be received in person in schools had already been expressed by the minister before. During a day of HPV vaccination at the Julio C. Tello school in Ate Vitarte, the head of the sector proposed that the measure should only be implemented in schools where the rates of vaccination of teachers are 100% with three doses and, in students, 80% with two doses. No such conditions were mentioned during the conference.

As for converting schools into vaccination points for the school community, the Medical College of Peru (CMP) had expressed that this measure would be beneficial for the development of vaccination in the country.

“One strategy that would work is to lead the brigades to vaccinate schools, with the captive population, permission and presence of parents, progress can be made and gaps closed. Another point could be health facilities, because here you know what the population is, their behavior and the worker knows their jurisdiction,” said Julio Barrena, secretary of the CMP.

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