translated from Spanish: New communes add to school breaks in July and Mineduc appeals flexibility

Following Maipú’s announcement yesterday, to give a two-week school recess for municipal establishments, other communes have gradually added to the initiative including for example Independencia and Las Condes.According to what is reported by the Emol medium the respective ediles suggest that this initiative is positive since the educational breaks would allow to face the stress and exhaustion that their school communities live. In any case, the pause periods will differ, being in the case of Independence of one week, between Monday 20 and Friday 24 July while in Las Condes the break will be divided into two: one week in July and another week in September. In this regard, from the College of Teachers, they indicated that there would be about 50 municipalities throughout the country that have opted for the option to freeze classes during this month, including Calbuco, Coronel and Puerto Montt, among others. For these reasons from the Magisterium they asked the Ministry of Education (Mineduc) to consider the framework situation and the current context for an official recess, although two weeks of winter holidays were already decreed in April. In this line says Mario Aguilar, president of the College of Teachers, stated that “The need for a pedagogical recess in July is a real necessity. There has been a very demanding job here that has been subjected to all school communities, adding that “there is a condition in the country of high stress and the format of remote work has been extremely demanding. We as teachers and teachers are working twice or triple the usual, does not stop all day, several classes by audiovisual format is very exhausting (…) therefore it is absolutely necessary”. Faced with this request from mineduc they disseminated an instruction through the General Education division, affirming the exceptional nature of the pandemic gives space to each school community to rearrange their activities, independent of the winter holidays that were taken in April. Specifically, they stated that “within a flexible framework”, communities “may adapt their activities to the needs of students during the quarantine and suspension period of face-to-face classes”.

Original source in Spanish