The pandemic derived from COVID-19 affected all areas of human life as restrictions for socialization were established by governments. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic caused a crisis and in the education field, the pandemic led to the massive closure of face-to-face activities of educational institutions in more than 190 countries in order to prevent the spread of the virus and by mid-May 2020, more than 1.2 billion students at all levels of education worldwide had stopped having face-to-face classes, more than 160 million were students in Latin America and the Caribbean according to the United Nations (2020).

The Mexican Government established distance education as the new modality for students in all education levels. The Official Federal Gazette in Mexico announced the suspension of elementary, middle school, high school and higher education in the country (Diario Oficial de la Federación, 2020).

The decision came fast and unexpectedly for education authorities, there was no preparation for teachers and students for the upcoming events. In the management of the academic institutions people had no direction of how to continue with the education process, the only thing that was required immediately was to start with distance education programs.

The impact of this situational context was severe for teachers, students and specially for vulnerable groups. Few materials and resources were given for the immediate challenge. The Education Public System launched a tv program and some online courses for teachers during summer 2020. The Mexican teachers had to change their traditional way to teach because students weren’t able to attend school in all levels of education. On the other hand, students had to learn to interact through different media, solve doubts and do their activities at isolation, with almost no direct help. The sudden change affected the pedagogical processes, and the learning processes and experiences had to be renegotiated in order to maintain quality in education.

The 2030 UNESCO agenda has as one of its major goals, to warranty inclusive, quality and equal education and to promote learning opportunities long-life for everyone. This objective number four promotes quality in education and in objective number ten to reduce inequality (United Nations, 2025).

According to previous studies (Orozco et al., 2023) some of the most affected groups of students by the new educational setting were vulnerable students such as the ones living in rural areas and low-income communities with connection and internet problems.

The teachers tried to support these learners in order to accomplish the educational goals and to be successful at their jobs. The teachers had the responsibility to finish the academic program in the new modality; in order to achieve this goal, they had to be creative and look for ways of facilitating learning with students in long distance. The lack of resources was abundant because there weren’t any individual designed curriculum materials and the most important, the students had limited availability of electronic devices and connectivity; the care takers, also took major roles on the learning process.

Adapting to this process and evolve through the inconveniences we have mentioned was a very hard work, done mainly by isolated teachers in every community around Mexico. The students also had to adapt to different educational conditions in order to achieve their goals, this transition affected their studies and personal life.

Some research has been done in regard of the COVID 19 period and its effects on the educative systems, and how the hybrid models being conceptualized as a mixture of two modalities (virtual and presential) can aid and support learning. To collect evidence and data and to research on how education was conducted during the pandemic in Latin America promotes better understanding of the inequality in different educational systems.

In this specific article, the research context shows a system with little planning and training for teachers as the sudden pandemic appeared and with some resources difficulties as there is low connectivity at houses where various family members use internet at the same time. Also, the community is small and there are few public and private spaces to use electronic devices that could aid the distance modality. The university as public institution has a variety of socioeconomic status students, many of them didn’t have any equipment for personal use.

In relation to all this educational problem, the present is a case study shows how was the students’ experience and opinion through the transition of higher education in a public school in the borderline of Mexico-U.S.A. The objective in this case study was to analyze the students’ experience and opinion about education in the University of Sonora during the pandemic COVID 19 and the post pandemic period.

This case study was carried out with students in the University of Sonora, whom had the experiences of being in the bachelor program of education in the virtual mode during 2020 and 2021, later on 2022 they were on the hybrid model and finally during 2023 and 2024 they studied in the presential model.

A qualitative and descriptive methodology was selected for this research project. A survey with three opened questions designed and the validation of the instrument was done by experts’ opinions. According American Psychological Association (2010) participants gave informant consent and for the research process: confidentiality and anonymity was assured to them. The instrument was applied to the 20 students in the bachelor of education in the University of Sonora.

All participants experienced the three educational models, because in 2020 they studied in the virtual model and then when the Mexican Government restarted the presential activities, the University of Sonora implemented the hybrid model as the best option for the came back to classes. The students had experienced a transition from the distance model to a mixed model and finally during the senior year they were back 100 percent in the presential model. The questions were about their experiences in the models and the transition from one to another. Categorization was done for data analysis and to get results.

The first question that students answered was: How did you experience education during the pandemic period through the virtual and hybrid education model? (Table 1)

Table 1

Resource: Authors’ own elaboration

Although there were some good comments and answers related to the hybrid and virtual model, the main answers reflected difficulties and stressful situations in which students mostly summary poor learning experiences; specially they felt there was amotivation in general.

The second question is the following: How did you experience education during the post pandemic period through the presential education model and your return to school? (Table 2)

Table 2

Resource: Authors’ own elaboration

The answers reflected satisfaction and contentment towards the came back to presential classes, because they felt good organization and learning easily.

Finally, the last question was: Can you describe which were your thoughts, points of view, actions and experience during the transition from the virtual to the presential education model? (Table 3)

Table 3

Resource: Authors’ own elaboration

The students expressed that even though it was a big change to came back to presential classes, and regarding the virtual and hybrid models being more flexible, they prefer the presential mode because they perceive a better learning process and more satisfaction the educational service.

In a summary of the results and with the purpose to get a general perspective of the students’ experiences, the following can be confirmed: they describe the virtual model mostly as complicated, stressful, confusing and the main opinion for both the virtual model and hybrid model was that the learning process didn’t meet their expectations.

This general overview describes dissatisfaction and negative feelings towards the models in relation to the academic service that the educative system offered. In contrast, they valued and appreciate more the presential classes with more positive opinions about it. The transition from one model to other represented adaptation problems and change.

The educative system should provide with public spaces with internet connection, to provide a continuous formative process and to diminish the socioeconomic difficulties vulnerable groups face. Lion (2023) also suggests the importance of shorten the access to technology and other resources, offer meaningful curriculum, provide different communication channels to promote interaction, have adequate teacher training according to the new global context and build appropriate and more modern facilities in institutions.

The recommendation for a better students’ experience and opinion towards the three educative models and the transition among them, is to provide resources and tools for motivation, flexibility, and communication. This base could help participants go through the education process in a lighter form.

The hybrid and the virtual models are flexible systems (Viñas, 2001), in this case study flexibility is one of the most important characteristics that students valued during this period and that could be opportunity to extend this type of education. There are methodologies that can adapt, according to Paez et al., (2024) the flipped classroom offers an active role for the student in which readings and other didactics materials are used at home with the purpose of using the previous knowledge acquired in forward sessions.

Students’ experiences and opinions are focused to the characteristics of their learning process more than in their feelings towards it. It can be concluded that they value their learnings and education above of all. As the virtual modality didn’t meet their needs and expectations, it is highly suggestable to warranty and improve the quality and the students’ experience in the virtual mode.

Under the claim that quality education should be one of the main objectives, there is much action to take in relation to the distance education systems regards their novelty and the lack of training many institutions. A suggestion is that it is necessary to adapt content to the platforms and media resources available using active methodologies to promote interaction, collaboration and reflection among peers and teachers, because these factors enhance learning and also students in this research expressed their interest in interacting with peers and professors as part of the learning and teaching process.

The institutions can work in better curriculums related to real life situations that can be asset by different types of methodologies, activities and resources.

Considering the presential model is predominant in some institutions, it is good to add situations that let students learn outside the school.

The Flipped classroom active methodology offers the possibility to motivate students to work outside the classroom and come back with appropriate feedback for learning processes in the classroom. Education is influenced by global changes and specific contexts provide different challenges, and its research can provide guidelines to structure and to create stronger and more modern education systems.