Classes began in Jalisco yesterday with 126,197 students and 8,301 teachers of Higher Secondary Education from public and private institutions.
They began courses under a hybrid scheme with the option of distance education, but with all the health protocols to reduce the risk of contagion by COVID.
“Today, these young people and teachers return to our upper secondary education system, and this allows us to measure the size of the challenge we face. That is why here in the Government of Jalisco we are concentrated, and we have nothing in mind other than to achieve a safe return to the classrooms, because nothing replaces the return to the classrooms; nothing replaces having your teacher in front of you; nothing replaces the coexistence of our young people with their classmates; and we are going to solve that step by step. Today the strategy of going back to school also begins with the logic of gradualism, so that on September 20 the Jalisco schools are at full steam,” explained Governor Enrique Alfaro.
He also reiterated that Jalisco has a health protocol for care in the event of COVID outbreaks, and the application of random tests if necessary.
“We all know how we can take care of ourselves. What makes the difference is the use of the mask, the distance, the hygiene measures. That is what we have to do in a timely manner, and we will get out of this well. We will show that the risk of contagion for our young people is not in the classrooms, the risk of contagion is in places where sanitary measures are not followed, it is in places where individual responsibility fails. We have a strategy to deal with any coronavirus outbreak,” he said.
The Secretary of Education, Juan Carlos Flores Miramontes, stressed that at the beginning of the school year for upper secondary education there is also a demonstration of Jalisco's leadership, and the vision applied to strengthen this system in the midst of the pandemic.
“In the midst of this pandemic, the Government of Jalisco has been a catalyst to innovate and strengthen the State's upper secondary education, as it has strengthened ties between various subsystems, as well as with the business sector, and with civil society, ”emphasized Flores Miramontes.
Along with the return to face-to-face classes for upper secondary education, the Governor inaugurated the renovation work of what is now the new campus of the CECyTE, the Bachillerato Tecnológico para Altas Capacidades in Zapopan. With an investment of 15.70 million pesos, the facility will train and develop the potential and talent of young people with great intellect in the areas of science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics, and humanities.
Carol Andrea Salazar Maldonado, a CECyTE student, thanked the authorities present for the opportunity they gave her to study at the Technological Baccalaureate for High Capacities, in which she will return to face-to-face classes to continue studying after the complexities she faced during the pandemic.
“It was not easy to study during the pandemic for many aspects, such as coexistence with friends or with teachers, to solve doubts, or just to rectify that what we understood is correct. It also implies the attention paid to the classes. If you take a class by computer there are many distractions within reach such as checking the phone, watching television, while teachers do not realize that they are not paying attention. In a normal class teachers have more field of vision to see who is paying attention, or if there is someone who did not understand. The same happens with homework; students can search the Internet for the answers to all their work and that leads us to learn nothing," said the student.
In this first stage, the CECyTE program will serve 60 students specialized in electronics with high-tech workshops and laboratories such as a makerspace, a communication and information technology laboratory, a science laboratory, and in a second stage it will have a virtual reality laboratory. The second stage of intervention scheduled for next year has a 30 million peso budget intended for infrastructure growth, including a student dormitory.