Effects and Consequences of Covid-19 to Higher Education in Mexico

Abstract

After more than six months of the COVID-19 pandemic some of its effects to higher education have been already documented. The higher education institutions around the world rushed to teach online, most of them without any preparation and in some cases in public universities their authorities imposing the technology to be used, the school calendar and new labor relations. At the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana more than a third of the students considers that learning online has been minimum or null and 76.1% of their professors use their own equipment to teach online and 74.6% work more hours than the established in their contracts. At the Instituto Politécnico Nacional, 20% of its students did not take classes online and 10% of their professors did not teach online. In this paper some of the negative effects of COVID-19 to higher education are referred and discussed, among them, the effects on the salary inequality. Some recommendations are offered to the institutions in their return to “normal” activities.