TV Azteca and Televisa, Key Allies for Back to School

The return to classes in Mexico is still uncertain. While other industries have already resumed activities in stages, schools, teachers, students and also parents face the question of what the new normality will be like in schools or whether it is better to migrate to the homeschooling scheme indefinitely.

In light of these doubts, the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) signed and agreement with Televisa, TV Azteca, Imagen Televisión and Milenio to transmit the learning content for the next school year, which will cost the federal government MX$450 million (US$20 million). The investment only covers operating expenses and those derived from using 24 hours a day each of the channels that the companies made available to transmit educational content at the preschool, primary, secondary and high school levels, which will benefit 30 million students. 

“On the basis of the results obtained from this agreement, the unit cost of MX$15 (US$0.67) was calculated for each regular student enrolled in the 2020-2021 school year, who will be beneficiaries of the contents of the academic program to be implemented by television from Aug. 24 to Dec. 18, 2020, representing MX$0.12 (US$0.005) a day per student,” the government said in a statement. 

On Monday, during his daily conference, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced the new academic year will start remotely, as adequate conditions for return do not yet exist. "Television stations have committed to providing the service of distribution, diffusion and transmission of educational non-profit visual content through the multiplexed channels they have," added the government. The return to school will only be possible when the epidemiological traffic light is green, stressed Minister of Education Esteban Moctezuma.

Yesterday, UNESCO warned that 24 million students worldwide, from preschool to university level, may not return to school in 2020 as a result of school closings caused by COVID-19, according to the report 'Education in the time of COVID-19 and beyond'. Higher education could experience the highest dropout rates, as well as a reduction in enrollments of up to 3.5 percent, which would result in a loss of 7.9 million students. The second most affected level would be preschool education, in which an enrollment loss of 2.8 percent is expected.