Poverty and Education in Times of COVID-19: The Implementation of Education Programs in Southeastern Chiapas, Mexico
Lau, N. (2025). Poverty and Education in Times of COVID-19: The Implementation of Education Programs in Southeastern Chiapas, Mexico. In: Yang, G., Zhang, J., Xiong, X., Liu, L. (eds) Risks, Resilience and Interdependency. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-96-7167-0_5
In Mexico, the sanitary contingency decreed on March 2020 resulted in a series of measures that forced schools to shut down at all educational levels. Subsequently, measures for distance learning were implemented. In addition to exposing the alarming level of certain social issues that have long persisted, the pandemic has resulted in high and cross-sectional sanitary, economic, and social costs. In this context, the policies implemented by the Mexican administration proved to be neither accurately focalized nor localized, struggling to meet the well-being demands of the population. This paper highlights the regional variation obstacles that prevented the optimal implementation of educational programs launched by the government between 2020 and 2022 in three localities in southeastern Chiapas. One of the most important findings shows that, in addition to a series of persistent issues hampering the well-being of families in these locations—i.e., poverty, food, and employment insecurity—without a localized and sustainable outlook in the education programs and policies implemented during the pandemic, parents’ involvement and children’s interest in their education decreased considerably. Only 60% of the students complied with their schoolwork regularly, and eventually, a subset of youths (aged 10–18) dropped out of school completely to help with the economy of their household.
