Restrictions on Formal Education Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and Their Effects on Growing Marginalisation in Argentina

Abstract

The chapter focuses on the multiple effects that the policies of social isolation and distancing, implemented to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, have had in Argentina, particularly in the field of education. It considers the specific restrictions and their profound consequences on school access for millions of children and young people. The transformation from face-to-face to virtual education has crudely exposed a very disparate socio-economic, cultural and technological situation that has particularly affected the marginalised population, limiting their opportunities to achieve better social integration, both present and future. The problem is framed within the sequence of government measures to reduce activities linked to the temporal evolution of the pandemic in Argentina and its consequences, such as the sharp increase in poverty levels that affect children even more severely. A case study concerning schools close to marginal neighbourhoods allows a concrete and close-up view of the daily experience of teachers and pupils. In these two years, educational disparities have significantly widened inequality among children, delaying the development of some and hindering their social integration. The marginality of today and tomorrow has increased in Argentine society.