Mexico’s school year to begin with instruction on television

Distance learning will begin for more than 30 million Mexican school children Aug. 24, but a return to classrooms will remain an uncertain goal, the country’s education secretary said Monday.

Secretary Esteban Moctezuma Barragán and leaders of the country’s largest television networks presented in broad strokes a plan to put educational instruction on television.

Moctezuma Barragán said that risks continue being too high. Officials fear children could become coronavirus carriers, infecting relatives at home. Students will not return to classrooms until the government’s version of a stoplight to evaluate the pandemic’s risk is safely at green.

In remote indigenous communities, instruction will be carried on government radio. Some 140 million free textbooks will be distributed.