COVID-19: Psychosocial impact on school in Chile. inequalities and challenges for Latin America

Abstract

The Coronavirus-19 (covid-19) pandemic has ex-ceeded five million cases worldwide, and its consequences have been devastating for health and society in general. As part of the health protocols that seek to mitigate the pandemic’s effects, school closures were implemented in most countries, where Chile was no exception. In the framework of this article, we seek to give an account of the psychosocial impact of this initiative on Chilean schools and to broaden the re-flection to the rest of Latin America. In this sense, we analyze government decisions since the creation of the Aprendo en Línea [I Learn Online] program and propose a contextualization and a contrast with the measures adopted in other countries. We then explore the conditions of the exercise of the teaching activity, its consequences in the family context, and the impact on the relationship between families and schools. This allows us to visualize, once again, not only the structural inequality of the Chilean education system but also its maintenance and eventual deepening. The discussions and measures to be implemented in the current situation pose challenges that, beyond the context of Chile, can be extended to other Latin American countries.