Introduction

During the COVID-19 pandemic, school lockdown was the primary policy aimed at reducing the probability of increasing the number of infections among the student population and their families. This response immediately interrupted traditional face-to-face instructional activities, and school communities had to rapidly implement distance education programs, thus depending on educational technology. Suddenly, decision makers, school principals, teachers, and parents had to make rapid decisions with minimal, and sometimes contradictory, information. Therefore, many school communities had to improvise, adapt, and implement new and untested instructional approaches to respond to the rapidly changing conditions due to the pandemic.

Unfortunately, in several low- and middle-income countries, including Mexico, the implementation of distance education activities during the school lockdown resulted in unexpected effects. Factors like the digital divide and the uneven distribution of education quality became significant barriers to rapidly implementing effective emergency education interventions, thus escalating longstanding educational inequalities.

Adverse effects on educational outcomes were immediately foreseen and later confirmed through different estimations and evaluations. In Mexico, researchers identified significant learning loss due to the COVID-19 school lockdowns, despite the lack of an official and reliable government estimation of the pandemic’s impact on educational outcomes. For instance, Hevia et al. (2022), analyzed data from 3161 children between 10 and 15 years old and found a statistically significant difference in test scores associated with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, these authors found a negative association between the socioeconomic status of students’ families and their results in Reading and Mathematics tests administered during the pandemic, suggesting differentiated effects for the poorest population.

In addition, Monroy-Gómez-Franco et al. (2022) reported that the pandemic may result in a learning loss equivalent to a third of a school year in the short run and one school year in the long term, assuming the distance education policy adopted by the Mexican government was effective. If the distance education strategy adopted by Mexico during the pandemic turns out to be ineffective, the learning loss will likely increase to an entire school year in the short term and two school years in the long run. These authors also pointed out a substantial variation in the distribution of adverse effects across regions and states. The country’s poorest region will likely experience a learning loss up to three times higher than the loss experienced in the wealthiest area of the country, called the central region (Monroy-Gómez-Franco et al., 2022). This finding confirmed the likely deepening of educational gaps due to the COVID-19 pandemic, just as some researchers forecasted at the beginning of the sanitary crisis in early 2020 (Reimers & Schleicher, 2020).

In addition to the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning, studies have indicated potential negative effects on enrollment rates. According to preliminary figures included in a recent report from the governmental “National Commission for the Continuous Improvement of Education” (MEJOREDU), at the beginning of the 2020–2021 school year (September 2020), Mexico had nearly 29.4 million students enrolled in preschool, primary, lower, and upper secondary systems. Compared with the enrollment reported in the 2019–2020 school year, nearly 763,299 students abandoned public and private schools in the country, representing a drop around 2.5% of the total national enrollment (Comisión Nacional para la Mejora Continua de la Educación, 2021). This estimation suggests a significant reduction in preschool enrollment rates, where nearly 406,439 students dropped out in the first months of the pandemic, while 159,668 students dropped out from upper secondary schools. In addition, nearly 200,000 students dropped out of primary and lower secondary schools. Regrettably, other regions and countries found similar adverse effects. As a recent study pointed out, in a systematic review of 36 robust studies, authors found that learning losses, on average, represented up to 0.17 of a standard deviation, which is equivalent to about half a year worth of learning (Patrinos et al., 2022).

Another adverse effect associated with COVID-19 is the increased number of orphans. According to Hillis et al. (2021), 76.4% of global COVID-19 deaths (as of April 30, 2021) were parents who have children younger than 18 years old in countries the following countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, England, Wales, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, the USA, and Zimbabwe. In Mexico specifically, the reported number of orphaned children was 131,325 (33,342 mothers and 97,951 fathers deceased) from March 1, 2020, to April 30, 2021.

Beyond the estimations of the magnitudes of the adverse effects, more research is required to better understand the causes of these effects. It is critical to explore how teachers and principals made decisions and implemented instructional strategies during the pandemic. This investigation will help identify potential lessons to address the new and deepened educational inequalities and to be better prepared for future emergencies.

In this chapter, we describe and analyze how a small sample of teachers perceived and reacted to specific problems students and their families faced during the school lockdowns in one state in Mexico. Based on information collected through interviews, we analyze how teachers perceived the barriers affecting their instructional activities. We describe how teachers reacted to specific conditions affecting student performance during the pandemic. This analysis aims to provide evidence regarding how teacher perceptions and decisions resulted in different learning experiences across population groups during the pandemic. This study may help identify practices and conditions explaining learning loss and increased dropout rates. It also provides suggestions for potential routes to strengthening the teaching and managerial skills required for the successful implementation of recovery interventions in the post-pandemic period.

Educational Policies in Mexico During the COVID-19 Pandemic

According to the World Bank, more than 180 countries implemented temporary school lockdown policies, affecting nearly 1.6 billion students worldwide (Azevedo et al., 2020). In Latin America alone, more than 144 million students spent nearly 5 months out of school during the 2019–2020 school year (García, 2020). Mexico was among these countries interrupting school activities in response to the sanitary crisis. According to the National Statistics and Geography Institute (INEGI, 2020a, b), data from the National Survey for the Measurement of the COVID-19 Impact on Education (ECOVID-ED) estimated around 33.6 million Mexican students were directly affected by the pandemic due to school lockdowns.

During this period, educational materials and educational technology were the primary resources available to help students continue learning, since technology is a “bridge between teachers and students” (García, 2020; Saykili, 2018). Therefore, access to digital instructional material was fundamental to supporting students during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico.

The initial pedagogical response in Mexico was the implementation of the “Learning at Home” program, a distance education strategy to support students (MEJOREDU, 2021). This strategy included five components: (a) the production and broadcasting of televised educational programs; (b) the broadcasting of educational radio programs; (c) the design and distribution of educational materials to support instructional activities in regions with limited access to digital media; (d) the publication of websites to distribute digital resources; and (e) the operation of a national call center to provide support and feedback to students, teachers, and parents (National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy [CONEVAL], 2021). However, the lack of access to technology was one of the main challenges initially faced by teachers. In 2019, only 44.3% of all Mexican households had a computer, 56.4% had internet access, and 75.1% of students older than 5 years had access to a cell phone (INEGI, 2021).

During the 2020–2021 school year, the Mexican Ministry of Education continued the implementation of distance learning and the second and third versions of the “Learning at Home” program since in-person school activities did not resume until the beginning of the 2021–2022 school year after the Ministries of Education and Health designed and published a “Guide for a Responsible and Safe Return to Schools” (Gobierno Federal, 2021). According to the Ministry of Education, this Guide included several mandatory actions to promote the return to face-to-face learning, including creating Participatory School Health Committees (CPSE) to share information with local health centers about school conditions.

The Guide also recommended providing socio-emotional support to students and teachers and promoting the organization of professional activities like the online course referred to as “Safe Return” designed to provide information to reduce the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections.Footnote 1

In addition, the Ministry of Education and MEJOREDU implemented teacher professional development programs to promote the adoption of collaboration strategies to develop digital skills, along with other professional development programs designed to familiarize teachers with new technological tools required to implement distance education models. Furthermore, the Ministry of Education published two websites aimed at developing digital skills among teachers by offering free online courses with audiovisual content.Footnote 2

An essential factor in the analysis of the educational response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico is that during the “return to school” period, the Federal Government began the implementation of curriculum reform. From January to May 2022, the government conducted a public consultation with different educational actors– namely, the teachers´ union– about a new curriculum, organizing public forums to analyze and discuss the design and content of new textbooks (SEP, 2022). Various criticisms argue that the design of this curricular reform did not consider the adverse effects of the pandemic.

In addition to the efforts on behalf of the federal government, some state governments implemented different strategies to support students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case of the state of Quintana Roo stands out because it developed initiatives to reduce educational gaps and promote socio-emotional interventions in schools. Another example is Guanajuato, where government officials implemented a pilot project to support back-to-school activities, including a diagnostic test for primary and higher education students. In Chihuahua, learning recovery activities were defined for all educational levels, which included administering teacher surveys and promoting initiatives to diagnose student achievement. Finally, the state of Nuevo León implemented different evaluation activities to support the design of comprehensive learning recovery strategies for primary and upper-secondary students (Escuela de Gobierno y Transformación Pública & México Evalúa, 2021).

Local authorities in the state where we conducted this study implemented a Distance Education Strategy at the beginning of the pandemic, based on the implementation of teacher professional development programs to develop digital skills, like the use of the following digital platforms: Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Google Classroom, Zoom, and Google Meet. Their strategy was based mainly on the publication of web platforms and a model already used by teachers, which guided the implementation of different academic activities and allowed for the organization and use of virtual classrooms. These platforms aimed to facilitate schoolwork, distribute learning activities, and improve coordination and communication among supervisors, school principals, teachers, students, and parents (Government of the State, 2021).

In addition, the state education authority adjusted the school calendar to compensate for the lack of face-to-face instructional activities, delivering tablets to students through a program to reduce dropout rates, implemented during the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years.

Teacher professional development activities conducted in 2020 focused on providing tools and developing pedagogical skills (14 courses) – such as improving class dynamics, curricular planning, transmission of skills, design of evaluations, and learning based on projects. These trainings also covered the use of technological tools and digital skills (6 courses) – including using mobile devices for educational use, collaborative digital skills, digital platforms, delivery of student-centered online classes, and Google tools for education. Likewise, there were reference courses to train teachers on socio-emotional conditions (1 course), suicide (2 courses), peacebuilding (2 courses), gender (1 course), and administrative skills (1 course). These courses are referenced in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1 Courses for public primary school teachers
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According to this information, most courses organized in 2021 focused on improving teachers’ pedagogical skills (18). Other courses addressed mental health (3), information and communication technology (ICT) skills (3), and managerial skills (3). However, new courses included topics like school safety (1), harassment and bullying (1), school inclusion (1), healthy habits (2), financial education (2), and school dropouts (1). It is important to note that courses organized in 2020 focused on developing teachers’ technological skills, unlike courses taught in 2021. Furthermore, the number of participant teachers in 2021 decreased by 60% compared to 2020.

In 2021, the state education authority distributed more than 72,000 cleaning kits among public schools to protect students and staff. The local government invested in the rehabilitation of school facilities (e.g., repairing electrical and hydraulic systems). These local authorities implemented an online system to facilitate parent consulting scorecards, as well as for printing grades and school certificates (Gobierno del Estado, 2004).

Vaccination Policy in Mexico

In addition to educational interventions, the national vaccination policy was a critical factor in facilitating the resumption of face-to-face instruction. The vaccination process started in December 2020, during the implementation of the Learning at Home program. Vaccination occurred in military and civilian facilities, where health personnel on the front line of COVID-19 and teachers were vaccinated. In the second phase, vaccination started according to defined age cohorts. At least 155 vaccination centers opened in Higher Education Institution facilities throughout the country, and the vaccination of teachers concluded in June 2021 (Federal Government, 2021). In December 2021, the administration of vaccine boosters began among older adults, as well as among health and education personnel (SEP 2022_Blog). The Federal Government distributed 105,472,648 million vaccines against COVID-19 in 32 states from September 2021 to June 2022. Vaccination finally occurred for the population between ages 12 and 17 in the first semester of 2022 (Fig. 6.1).

Fig. 6.1
A timeline depicts events that took place in Mexico from 2020 to 2022. It starts with school closures, learning at home, vaccination process from March to December in 2020, learning at home 2 and 3 strategy, return to schools in 2021, and a new circular proposal draft and vaccine booster in 2022.

Lockdown, school closures, educational policies, and vaccination in Mexico. (Source: Created based on Plataforma Nacional de Transparencia (2022))

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Analytical Strategy

Since the primary goal of this chapter is to describe teachers’ perceptions regarding challenges faced while conducting instructional activities during the pandemic, we collected information using semi-structured interviews. This design helped us understand the contexts and the primary motives influencing teachers’ perceptions (MacDonald & Headlam, 2011; Creswell, 2013; Hernández-Sampieri & Mendoza, 2017; Wentz, 2014). Interviewed teachers were selected based on three conditions. First, they should work in public primary schools located in the same municipality. Second, teachers must have taught classes during the school lockdown period, that is, between March 20, 2020, and the last school day in the 2020–2021 school year calendar. Third, teachers must work in different schools to include a more diverse community.

Our sample was selected based on a snowball sampling process recommended by Parker et al. (2019). The sample size for this study totaled ten interviews. The analysis of each interview began with open coding, followed by axial coding to address the specific objectives of this study, as suggested by Woolf and Silver (2018). In the coding process, we followed the five stages proposed by Creswell (2013, as cited in Uysal, 2021). Finally, we identified different themes based on the collected information, as proposed by Bernard (2016). Following an inductive approach, we adopted thematic units identified in previous studies for this analysis.

Main Findings

Based on our analysis, teachers identified situations corresponding to five main barriers that influenced the way they interacted with students during the instructional practices implemented during the pandemic:

  1. 1.

    Teachers described some effects associated with the quality and characteristics of the available instructional materials, particularly those corresponding to the “Learning at Home” strategy.

  2. 2.

    Teachers described how the lack of access to reliable technology (both for students and teachers) significantly affected their performance as instructors or facilitators.

  3. 3.

    Teachers highlighted how variations in their digital skills determined different instructional practices.

  4. 4.

    Teachers identified a lack of or inadequate parental involvement during the pandemic as an important factor usually explaining student academic performance, but with a more considerable impact in the pandemic.

  5. 5.

    Teachers pointed out how perceptions regarding the use and characteristics of educational technology affected the implementation of instructional activities.

  6. 6.

    Teachers highlighted how the effect of previous inequalities associated with socioeconomic status increased during the pandemic.

From the teachers’ perspective, the following factors were the main barriers students faced while implementing distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Quality of Instructional Materials

Based on data from the interviews, teachers emphasized that the organization of educational activities through educational television resulted in significant barriers to teaching. Many students needed help to watch and learn from televised programs due to a combination of factors. Among these factors were the relevance and quality of the instructional materials, distribution of grades and subjects across schedules, and an overall lack of access to technology.

Some interviewees pointed out that students frequently ignored teachers’ recommendations about watching specific educational television programs. Most interviewees believed their advice had no impact on their students’ decisions due to the following two conditions: the characteristics of the instructional material and a lack of access to electronic devices.

Although interviewees generally agreed that the “Learning at Home” initiative had the potential to support student learning, one of the notorious complaints about this strategy was that the design of the TV programs was inadequate to support the learning of the least advanced students. As Interviewee 1 described, “TV programs were so long that children fell asleep.” Other interviewed teachers considered that educational content was explained very rapidly, at least for an average learner. For instance, Interviewee 8 pointed out that “[“Learning at home”] hosts will present a lot of information and questions, and some students can barely understand one question at the end of the program. As a teacher, you had to ask them to copy and answer all the questions, and our children were writing questions, but they could not answer. Because of this problem […], students had to wait to watch the program again at night, hoping they could understand the questions. [Unfortunately], if students did not have access to the Internet, they would not be able to watch the program on YouTube, and therefore, they would not finish their homework.”

To address this problem, some teachers decided to support students in rural communities by distributing printed booklets to support independent learning activities (National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, 2021). However, this adaptation does not necessarily correspond to the design of the national strategy, representing additional challenges regarding the implementation and adaptation of instructional practices for teachers with students different from the initial population for which the program was designed.

Digital Divide

According to the interviewed teachers, a considerable proportion of students did not have access to the Internet during the pandemic. In generous predictions, the percentage of students with access to the Internet in each group went from 29% to 50%. As Interviewees 1, 3, 5, and 7 pointed out, “Out of thirty-four students enrolled, only ten were able to connect [during lessons…]. It was a problem since I wanted to teach them via videoconference, but I could not do it because I would affect the rest of the students [who lacked connectivity]” (Interviewee 1). Another teacher considered that “only ten of…thirty-five children were able to connect (Interviewee 3),” while another interviewee stated that “only 50% percent [of students were] able to connect, sometimes only 40 percent […]” (Interviewee 7).

The lack of technology at home was a permanent problem during the pandemic. As one of the interviewees pointed out, “During the first year, only two students had access to a computer at home. Requesting everyone to get a computer was simply impossible” (Interviewee 5). In addition, most of the interviewed teachers reflected that they did not have access to technology to support their students adequately. Several teachers had to purchase more powerful smartphones with their own resources because their current devices would not record high-quality video or were not powerful enough to connect to specific apps they used to organize virtual meetings, such as Google Meet or Zoom.

The main difference between teachers and students was that teachers could access new communication technology because they could afford to acquire new devices with their salaries. Interviewee 1 stated, “I had to buy a phone […] The phone I had could only record one video. Go figure! So, we had to buy a new phone.” Interviewee 8, however, mentioned, “I had no limitations because I like to own different technological devices in my house. My students did not have the same opportunity because, as I mentioned, some did not have access to this technology. They had one cell phone for the whole family, some students did not have Internet access, and others had access only because a neighbor or a relative supported them. Some students did not have a single computer or tablet. I could not do anything. Sometimes they even had problems downloading a simple file.”

Although access to computers, smartphones, or tablets did not present a significant problem for teachers, several mentioned that the quality of their internet connection needed to be improved to support distance education activities. The main problem was the unexpected interruption of services. This resulted in disrupted or adapted lessons, sometimes by sending recorded videos via WhatsApp instead of organizing a synchronous session.

Interviewee 4 reflect, “I had to switch Internet companies due to […] connectivity issues. The main barrier for me was the unreliable Internet connection. I had to switch companies because sometimes the connection failed while I was at a live video conference. When this happened, I told the children, ‘You do not answer … answer me!’. [It was not] until a mother sent me a WhatsApp message, [telling me that] ‘they are answering you,’ [that I realized] my Internet connection was failing.”

Similarly, other barriers related to connectivity were observed, such as the type of connection students and teachers used to interact through the Internet. Teachers who implemented online classes or virtual meetings could connect through a landline Internet connection. However, students had to connect to the Internet using mobile data plans from cell phone companies.

Interviewees 5 and 8 noted that lack of access disproportionately affected the poorest students: Interviewee 5 stated, “I had mothers who told me that they were single mothers and had been recently fired from their jobs, and they did not receive a severance payment, so they could not afford food, let alone pay for printed copies of textbooks.” In addition, Interviewee 8 posed the following reflection:

There were sad stories where families had to choose between paying for a cell phone data plan to participate in an online class or paying for groceries. Sometimes they told me, ‘Teacher, I am not going to turn the camera on because I can run out of data.’ How do you deal with this? […] In addition, if students do not have money to pay for data plans on their cell phones, they would spend long periods without contacting their teachers. They just got in touch again when they had funds to pay for a data plan to get access to the Internet. This situation is regrettable because it increased educational inequalities. After all, parents must pay for education, and the poorest families were the ones that faced the most significant challenges to have access to education.

Students from the city’s poorest neighborhoods did not have access to education during the pandemic. They had Internet connection only through prepaid plans and did not have constant access to the Internet. Some families only had one smartphone per family, and more than one person was attending school. In a more complex situation, the family’s father owned the only smartphone in the home, and when he went to work, he took it with him. This situation affected students’ education.

An additional problem was reported in households with more than one enrolled student. If they had only one TV set, all the students could not watch educational programs as the schedules for broadcasts on different channels frequently overlapped. This problem was one of the main challenges faced by families and teachers. As Interviewee 6 explained, parents frequently complained about this problem: “[They told me,] ‘We try to watch the programs, but I need to spend the whole day on it since one of our children is a second grade student, another is in the fourth grade, one child is a fifth grade student, another is enrolled in a secondary school, and their TV schedules always overlap.’”

Digital Skills

Some teachers pointed out that using technology was beneficial because it meant less time for planning. For instance, as one Interviewee 1 stated, “Speaking of time, [technology] was the most significant benefit for me. Let me explain. The videos I recorded could not be long because I cannot share long videos through WhatsApp. After all, videos must last three to four or five minutes, maximum. So, I prepared my class the day before and recorded the videos in half an hour. I sent [to the students] five to six videos daily; the minimum was four because of the same number of subjects: Spanish, Mathematics, knowledge of the environment, and socio-emotional education.”

However, not all the teachers shared the same perspective. Interviewee 6 believed the “workload was [now] three times more than usual, and the results are less than half of what we had before.” The interviewee said, “Furthermore, working remotely means more effort because the educational content had to be greatly diversified: the workbooks, the online classes, and the homework review; the work multiplied greatly.” Another interviewed teacher considered that any class preparation would require more time than before.

The variation in the time demanded by teachers to plan classes using technology depended on their students’ abilities and whether teachers had the required digital skills to support their instructional practices. On the other hand, teachers with a considerable proportion of students lacking computer equipment and Internet access had to use printed workbooks and digital technology, which required more time.

Interviewees 6 and 8 stated, “Regarding training activities, some teachers needed previous knowledge and skills to use educational technologies, such as digital platforms or free applications, to organize online classes. However, other teachers were fine with using technology. According to the information collected, teachers with problems using educational technologies did not have an age pattern. There were teachers over fifty years of age, probably with more than 25 years of teaching service, and teachers of 35 years of age, with seven years of teaching service. Both needed help managing digital platforms due to a lack of training.” According to Interviewee 8, “There was that frustration of thinking, ‘I do not know,’ ‘I do not understand,’ and ‘How do you use [Google] Classroom? How do we send information using WhatsApp? How do we create groups?’ Perhaps for one who is younger, there was no frustration or barriers regarding the use of technology. However, it was stressful for a teacher who barely used WhatsApp used email or worked with groups on various platforms.”

Teachers who believed they had no problems using educational technologies, agreed this situation was explained by the training in managing digital platforms given by the local education authority, and because they had access to different internet tutorials. Therefore, the lack of knowledge and skills about educational technologies among teachers was not necessarily associated with the teacher’s age in our small sample of teachers.

In addition, many teachers with more seniority considered technology as “an evil device” prior to the pandemic. Therefore, they shared a negative belief about the effects of educational technology and believed “there was no possibility of using it within educational practice,” based on their own experiences. The pandemic forced them to change their beliefs and adopt a new attitude towards technology as a support tool to teach in primary education. According to Interviewee 1, for instance, “Well, I will tell you one thing. I thought technology was an evil product. I did not even want to use a computer. Now it is a vital tool for my work.”

As expected, differences regarding perceptions about technology in education before the pandemic were observed. Other teachers conceptualized educational technology as an essential tool that fostered student learning, directly impacting students whose learning depends more on visual and auditory experiences. One teacher noted, for instance, that student interest in school improved with technology. Another considered that technology created opportunities to improve educational quality. Other teachers perceive technology in education as a resource that helps to promote teamwork and teach any topic, for example, through images and videos. One teacher described this situation as follows: “We read something about salmon. There are no images of salmon in the printed material. So, a child asked me: ‘Teacher, what does a salmon look like?’. Then I used my cell phone, and I told them: Look! ‘Oh look, it is pretty,’ ‘Look, it is such a color,’ so I show them that technology can be used for educational purposes […] and therefore technology is helpful. I have a projector [...] I use it with them to see topics, share books, and organize teaching exercises on our blackboard [...] We watch many educational videos [...] We see an infinite number of topics in a single film. So, this is how I show them […] that technology can be helpful for educational issues.”

Regarding the ability and confidence to use ICT in educational activities during the pandemic, teachers mentioned they did not have enough skills to use technology in classrooms and were forced to learn quickly. Teachers sometimes expressed fear and frustration due to difficulty handling digital platforms and software or simply using the computer or mobile phone to send instructional videos. According to Interviewee 1, “Technology, in the beginning, was very complicated; step by step, I began getting used to it, practicing, and even sending some PowerPoint presentations.” Another teacher reflected, “We had to learn at the speed of light”. “That was better […] because now I use part of this learning, even though we are teaching face-to-face, a potential benefit from the pandemic.”

Moreover, regarding the current willingness to change their instructional practices once schools reopened, teachers realized that they developed new skills during the pandemic. They learned to use digital platforms to teach online lessons, educational applications to assess students, and mobile applications to communicate. This change allowed them to modify their instructional practices. Interviewed teachers now use different educational technologies to support students, distribute educational content, design new teaching plans, or make classes more appealing. According to Interviewee 1, “I did not even want to write plans on the computer; now, it is a vital tool. I cannot work without a computer, without a browser. In other words, it became part of my teaching practice because we must renew our teachers.” Another interviewed teacher mentioned that “[technological] tools that are not new […] I had never used them, but they are excellent […]. The pandemic […] left something positive because these are tools that I continue to use. Although we are already in face-to-face classes, it allows me to use them and make them more appealing” (Interviewee 3). Finally, another teacher recognized, “We use the internet now to complement the information in textbooks. It is an essential material for sixth grade because we can use a projector to show an image that gives us some idea about the Middle Ages, functions or fractions, and multiplication of fractions, among other content” (Interviewee 7).

Parental Involvement

Another relevant topic pointed out by interviewed teachers was the lack of parental involvement during the pandemic, usually due to the long working hours among many parents. Because of this, teachers had to extend their working schedules since they had to answer parents’ questions about courses content in the late hours. According to Interviewee 1 “Some mothers worked until 10 pm, and I had to answer their questions at that time.” Interviewee 4 “requested parents to send comments only from 8 am to 5 pm. This teacher reflected, “I had to tell them that was my schedule because some parents returned from work until night. They expected me to answer questions at 8 pm […], so I usually spent the whole day on the phone” (Interviewee 4). Finally, another teacher mentioned that it was difficult to “convince parents to avoid intervening in my [personal] activities [...]” (Interviewee 7). “One of the students, for example, was very lazy. His mother always wanted him to do their homework on time, so she sat and worked with him, but I would prefer that he try to do it alone [...] So, I had to explain to them that they should not intervene unless I asked them to do it so.,” Interviewee 7 said.

Previous Inequalities

In addition, other interviewees described different reactions from parents regarding the lack of student participation in distance education activities. For instance, one teacher pointed out that the lack of parental involvement affected students significantly during the pandemic. Interviewee 1 said, “[I] used to teach [children] from a poor neighborhood, where many children missed online classes or stopped answering messages.” Unfortunately, according to this teacher, “When you visit their homes, you realize there are drug problems, most of their parents are young couples, and some do not have access to the Internet or TV. They had to pay their rent and could not afford the Internet service. Their situation was unfortunate” (Interviewee 1). Other teachers pointed out, “It wasn’t easy to have a strategy for every student because each lived in different conditions. In a group, some children could not continue with distance education because they did not have money even for the copies of the workbooks that they left at the school. We do not even talk about computers or the Internet” (Interviewee 3).

Another interviewed teacher described, “Some students stopped sending their homework, and others moved to a different state” (Interviewee 4). Interviewee 4 recalled a student whose mother moved with him to Tijuana because she had lost her job. “When I contacted the mother, she told me she could not access the Internet or television service. I discussed it with my supervisor, and the order was that he would have to turn in all the evidence when he returned to our state. I mailed his textbooks to Tijuana [with my own money],” said Interviewee 4.

Based on these teachers’ recollections, examples recounted in previous categories remind us that the adverse effects of traditional educational barriers – such as teaching quality, inadequate instructional material, parental involvement, socioeconomic inequalities – were magnified during the sanitary emergency. For example, many students who usually did not have access to the Internet, computers, mobile devices, or digital tablets were disproportionally affected during the pandemic because face-to-face instructional activities were interrupted. In other cases, parents who did not have a modern smartphone to install the WhatsApp application to receive homework, booklets, and class activities were automatically excluded from instructional activities. Some students did not have a television to watch educational programs, and some teachers could not attend professional development activities to develop new capacities.

These conditions increased the complexity of the implementation of educational programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. As it was explained, a lack of prior training in digital platforms or tools, a lack of parental involvement, faulty learning materials, and the interaction of these conditions with previous inequalities resulted in significant deficiencies that may be associated with the reported learning loss and higher dropout rates. Although additional research is needed to establish this connection, the related experiences highlight some potential mechanisms that affected students’ trajectories during the sanitary crisis.

Final Comments and Recommendations

This study examines the context where teachers had to deal with the aforementioned barriers. The strength of this study rests on teachers’ behaviors during the pandemic, which is “described from the actor’s point of view” and “is context specific” (Tracy, 2013, p. 25). The factors explained in the previous section may help to highlight the challenges interviewed teachers faced during the pandemic, according to their recollections. Most of these factors confirm findings from different studies about educational inequalities before the COVID-19 pandemic, and so it is essential to highlight how their impact increased during this emergency. Furthermore, our sample is small and not representative of the population; however, teachers´ reflections about their decisions and the type of activities conducted during the pandemic help to identify potential factors explaining the adverse effects of school lockdowns. Table 6.2 summarizes the main challenges identified and reported by interviewed teachers.

Table 6.2 Main factors potentially explaining adverse effects
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As deduced from Table 6.2, “traditional” factors remained as significant barriers to implementing educational policies during school lockdowns. However, some differences are expected regarding their magnitude and the type of observed interactions. Furthermore, additional factors are not usually studied– for example, the limitations imposed by male partners on female teachers due to the extended schedule or the restrictions they imposed regarding the distribution of video-recorded lessons. Both the more established and the newer factors help to visualize different considerations for the design of post-pandemic interventions, suggesting potential changes in the causes of educational inequalities.

Beyond these preliminary findings, some recommendations arise based on the experiences and decisions reported by teachers:

  1. 1.

    It is important to understand that the negative impacts resulting from the pandemic and school lockdowns must be a source of ongoing concern and commitment to identify potential avenues to reform our education systems.

  2. 2.

    Standard inputs (like improving teaching quality) are still one of the main available tools to increase the effectiveness of educational systems, even though the intensive use of educational technology during this period may stimulate significant challenges in how we prepare future teachers.

  3. 3.

    More research is needed to inform the design and implementation of programs to address the lack of access to technology for students and teachers.

  4. 4.

    It is necessary to remember that redesigned professional development programs are needed to help teachers reflect on their newly acquired skills after the pandemic and to identify the core competencies teachers will need in the post-pandemic stage.

  5. 5.

    Gender became a significant issue during the pandemic since female teachers had more problems performing their professional activities, suggesting potential research lines to understand better how to address this problem in future emergencies.