President Maduro Explains What Back to School Will be Like

On Sunday, September 5, the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, announced that school activities in the new academic year will be in person, within the 7 + 7 reopening scheme applied by the national government. This means that there will alternately be a week of in-person classes and a week of online classes.

During an interview on the TV show Aquí con Ernesto Villegas, the president stressed that the primary objective of return to classes is “to rescue sociability” among the students and between the students and the teachers, which was truncated by the COVID-19 pandemic that forced millions of students from pre-K to university level to study from home.

“Classes are going to be face-to-face the 7 days of relaxation and then we go to the 7 days of [voluntary] quarantine,” explained the president.

#ATENCIÓN | El Presidente @NicolasMaduro informa que las actividades escolares serán de manera presencial bajo el esquema 7+7.
Y aspira que para el mes de diciembre todo el personal educativo, niños y niñas estén vacunados. pic.twitter.com/duerr2CH4A
— REDRADIOVE (@RedRadioVe) September 5, 2021

Vaccination of students
President Maduro expressed hope that by the month of December, all teaching staff, children, adolescents and young people will be vaccinated following proper health and scientific protocols.

“All those kids who go to classes, they are going to get the vaccine, we are going to protect them,” stressed the president. At the same time, he reiterated that all personnel who are part of the educational system, including workers, administrative personnel, teachers and others, will also be assured of their doses of vaccines; however, so far, most have already been vaccinated.

On August 30, President Maduro had announced that starting from October, children from 3 to 18 years of age will be vaccinated, so that they can start the new school year with in-person classes. This is part of the government’s efforts to complete the vaccination of 70% of the population, a goal that the Venezuelan government intends to meet before the end of the year 2021.

In this sense, the children, the part of the population most resistant to the virus so far, is being incorporated into the national vaccination scheme, to guarantee the immunity of families and staff at educational centers that are expected to open their doors in October of this year to start the school year.

“We will go preparing the students classroom by classroom, section by section, high school by high school, university by university—with great firmness and seriousness in biosafety measures: distancing, care, adaptation of classes to ventilated spaces,” the President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, announced in July.

Featured image: Venezuelan high school students wearing face masks. File photo.

(RedRadioVE) by Daniela Jiménez

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/SC