COVID19 & Badi School

Out of a population of 4 million, around 42,000 residents have been infected with COVID-19. Movement is still restricted and the country’s economy has been severely affected. A reopening plan classified in 5 Steps is being implemented, currently at Step 2 and schools are to reopen at Step 4.

The school year in Panama runs from March – December. March 2nd was the first day of school and on March 11th all classes were suspended “for a few days” as there was much uncertainty. To date, around 4,000 public schools and around 2,000 private schools are closed and have not been able to transition their education online. Badi School is one of about 120 that have been able to successfully transition to online teaching.

COVID-19 has brought with it unparalleled challenges to schools striving to provide access to safe, high quality education. Badi School has faced several technological and economic challenges, which they are solving step by step.

Some upcoming challenges:

• Suspension of tuition payments due to parents with financial deficiencies
• New requirements from the Ministry of Education
• Lack of funds to cover teacher salaries
• Lack of human resources to take on new challenges
• Reopening logistics for 2021



Unexpected needs:

• Zoom is the platform best known by the students, the payment for this service is around $400 USD a month
• Need to provide additional Partial Scholarships (increase from 15 currently to 50 in total)
• Digitizing several books that the school has published in order to offer them for free ($2,400)
• Create a new database system for grades ($3,000)