The Provision of Learning in Mexico During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

To understand how Aprende en Casa contributed to the spread of digital learning and the implementation of the Educational Digital Agenda in Mexico, this report presents the analysis of an exploratory study that consisted of three semi-structured interviews. The interviewees for this inquiry were a leader of the Aprende en Casa strategy at SEP, the director of a basic education public school in Tijuana, northern Mexico, and the director of a private pre-school establishment in Mexico City. The interviews were conducted from February to August 2021 and centered on each interviewee's perspectives according to their professional standpoint. This report presents the results according to three topics that complemented each other among the interviews: the duty of the State as the main provide of education, the progress and setbacks in the use of technologies for educational purposes, and the factors that define the digital divide in Mexico. Findings suggest that the digital divide in Mexico cannot be merely understood as the access to devices and the Internet that the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) defined in 1999, but as a holistic set of factors that intervene in the use of technologies: Internet and mobile, social class, economic capital, emotions and perceptions, and public policy, results which are very much in line with Robinson et al. (2015). These factors interact within an already unequal society whose educational backbone is its Secretary of Education, but whose implementation burden ultimately lies on the teaching staff.