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For the first time in its history, the National Autonomous University of Mexico ( UNAM ) will start this semester online.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic , the university's campuses closed in March. However, the facilities could remain closed until January 2021.
UNAM official Leonardo Lomelí Vanegas told EL UNIVERSAL that it is possible that students won’t attend classes in person until 2021, although there is a possibility. He mentioned that in case the university resumes its daily activities, only a third of students could attend classes.
The university presented a project on June 17, which included installing sanitary filters to detect any COVID-19 case, allow 50% of students into classrooms, and maintaining physical distancing.
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Three months after the proposal was made by the institution, the UNAM officially announced its decision to resume the 2020-2021 school year through distance learning . Now, over 350,000 students will learn from home.
In a statement released by the largest university in Mexico, the institution said: “Classes during this semester, which formally begins tomorrow, will start gradually throughout the week and until September 28, depending on what authorities at each faculty, school, or high school decided."
It added that amid the public health crisis, the UNAM is looking to develop its technological capacity, “creativity, and imagination to provide its students with a high-quality distance learning.”
The Mexican university said that this period will present certain difficulties and that handling one of the biggest and most diverse student communities in the world will surely require “extraordinary measures.”
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mexican government suspended classes at pre-school, elementary school, junior high school, and high school until further notice; however, public universities are autonomous, and each one will decide when will it resume its activities.
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