Michael Casillas
Among the most difficult effects to resolve caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is the increase in social inequality. Specifically in higher education, during the pandemic there has been a differentiated affectation among the student body, which has harmed the most fragile and poor in cultural capital.
Although higher education had an elitist origin linked to race, gender and social class, the slow process of massification and democratization of income was expressed in the expansion of university enrollment to exceed four million students and the expansion of its social diversification: today the university is made up of as many men as women, there are students of all creeds, colors and social origins, there are students of indigenous origin and also Afro-Mexicans.
However, despite its expansion and diversification, higher education in Mexico continues to be a scarce cultural asset to which only four out of ten young people reach, while in all developed countries everyone has access and in many Latin American countries they exceed our possibilities. .
These general assessments should not hide the fact that, despite the expansion of enrollment and the opportunities for access to higher education, there is enormous diversity within the student population, and that during the years of the pandemic the opportunities for students to pursue higher education. To the old inequalities were added the new ones, derived from the pandemic.
In August 2020, ECLAC-UNESCO published a report on the educational situation at the beginning of the pandemic (Education in times of the COVID-19 pandemic), it was a very illustrative photo of how Latin American countries were responding to the pandemic and what were some indicators of social inequality that were affecting students differently.
The ECLAC-UNESCO report identifies that the almost generalized measure was the suspension of classes, which had educational consequences, but also in the nutrition of thousands of children who received school breakfasts. The dominant educational measures were online classes, the transmission of TV programs and the use of educational platforms was less. Of the total number of countries studied, only eight offered technological devices to students. Mexico’s position compared to other countries is serious, in terms of inequalities and backwardness. With data from 2018, it is observed that in the OECD average 92 out of every 100 young people over 15 years of age have access to the Internet; the average for Latin America is 79, while that of Mexico is 68. This average in turn hides a situation of profound inequality in study conditions in Mexico, because when students are analyzed according to the socioeconomic quartile to which belong, it is observed that while 78 out of 100 students from the highest quartile have a laptop, in contrast only 11 out of 100 students from the poorest quartile have access. Internet access at home is another evidence of this profound inequality: 95 out of 100 young people from the highest socioeconomic stratum have access, while only 30 from the poorest quartile meet this condition.
ECLAC-UNESCO identified that, on average in Latin America, economic inequalities differentiated the school experience of students during the pandemic. Various indicators show that students from higher socioeconomic strata use computers more, do more homework using the Internet, use the Internet more to seek explanations than their poorer peers, the same to communicate with their peers to do homework and to communicate with teachers.
The aforementioned ECLAC-UNESCO report was presented at the beginning of the pandemic. The university and higher education authorities at the federal, state and institutional levels cannot be called strangers. During the two or more years that the pandemic has lasted, with a few exceptions, they deliberately ignored the poorest, the most fragile and dispossessed: they left them adrift. By not recognizing and identifying the poorest in cultural capital and by not generating specific support, reinforcement and accompaniment policies, they contributed to and increased inequality. By not identifying the most fragile, institutional support was not generated to curb desertion, the meaning of tutoring was not renewed, they were not provided with the necessary support; once again they were ignored.
In itself, the carelessness with which higher education students have been treated during the pandemic is serious; however, it is even worse that in the strategies for returning to face-to-face activities, a plan for support, reinforcement, reintegration into the institutional space and reactivation of their disciplinary socialization has not been designed. There are no policies that are promoting the return of those who left and suspended their studies. We lack a national strategy to reactivate university spaces, to promote innovation and to form a hybrid system.