Bolivia just outright canceled the rest of its school year

Bolivia couldn't find a balance between preventing coronavirus spread and keeping its children learning.

The South American country will simply cancel the rest of its school year, its president Jeanine Añez Chavez announced Sunday. While it originally planned to run digital classes through December, the fact that most children in the country don't have internet made that impossible, DW reports.

Bolivia shut down all of its schools in March, just a month after they opened for the year. It tried to operate virtual classes, but failed because high-speed internet doesn't extend beyond cities, leaving most of the country's rural population unconnected, minister of the presidency Yerko Núñez said. Public school teachers protested the virtualization efforts, saying it would only speed up the privatization of education. Private school teachers also feared they'd lose their incomes if their schools had to shut down, DW reports.

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The decision comes as schools in the northern hemisphere struggle to figure out how they'll reopen in a month or less. Millions of Americans, particularly in rural areas, lack internet access, and even with it, it's hard to keep children engaged and learning remotely.