"Biosecurity and health" is the topic that is read on a blackboard in one of the classrooms of the “Julia Rodríguez Viña” Bolivarian School, in the Unare parish, Caroní de Bolívar municipality. What follows, with different colors of wasted ink, are questions about COVID-19.

The teacher Norka Viña receives only two of the 14 students that she should attend in her third grade classroom. She calls them to review the day's progress, while she gives them examples of how they might respond to the home assignment.

The light and the little air that enters the room are natural. They don't have light bulbs and Viña lost track of how long ago the air conditioning was stolen. Most of the brown desks were tucked in the background, just below some pictures alluding to national symbols.

The teacher began to take her first steps as a teacher more than 22 years ago, at that time, she substituted her mother in a rural school located in a rural sector via El Pao, Piar municipality of Bolívar state. There she traveled by truck, something impossible nowadays, due to the fuel shortage and the transportation deficit.
“I have always liked working with children and from the first moment I felt a passion for being a tetacher,” she says. Viña obtained a bachelor's degree at the Universidad Pedagógica Experimental Libertador (UPEL) and began working formally some 15 years ago.

She has taught in all sectors: private, semi-private and now in the public. For her, one of the most rewarding moments in her profession was when she saw her first group of students at the university and they thanked her for considering her to be the best teacher. "I always had one goal: to teach."

She points out that in addition to the content seen in class, she encourages her students to have training as citizens, so that they understand and apply human values.

"It is not necessary to disguise it, the government has neglected the most important aspect of a nation, which is education."

For Viña, the pandemic affected more the weak learning of students and aggravated the already marked neglect of education for the government. "It is not necessary to disguise it, the government has neglected the most important aspect of a nation, which is education."

The Living Conditions Survey (Encovi) highlights that 35% of people between the ages of 3 and 24 did not have access to education in 2021 and those who managed to continue with their studies did so in a context of academic lag, internet restrictions, and lack of electronic devices.

The teacher questions that some parents disregard school assignments and at the end of the school year they arrive expecting an answer that allows their children to pass the grade, even if they are not learned a thing and that´s a harm to the student.

Some children have weaknesses in subjects that should have already been learned, they have begun to read and write barely when they reach their grade. "The child needs to have that contact with his teacher, with his school," she says. Although she emphasizes that face-to-face classes are essential, she considers that learning is a marriage where parents must also participate.

Despite her return to face-to-face classes, this Tuesday some classrooms were locked. The teachers did not come and the few students who attended were sent home. The school, painted in different shades of beige, is one of the largest in the area. It had spaces such as a library and a culture room, which today are closed and unused.

Despite the great infrastructure, it does not have lighting and the protectors of the air conditioners only remain to show the conditions it once had. Although few valuables remain, the school continues to be dismantled with the theft of steel sheets. During the pandemic there were more than five robberies at the institution in few months.