When schools open up is a question that students, parents and school principals are still waiting for in vain. It is perhaps only clear which schoolchildren will sit on the benches first.
“If it works and the timing depends on the situation, the first and second years must return the fastest, at the same time we will strive to restore special schools,” Education Minister Robert Plaga said on Friday.
The last years of primary schools and graduation years are to follow. The last ones are to be university students.
“We would like to know the date, but I’m not sure that anyone knows it … I’m glad we have at least an order, a rough framework in which it should return,” said Michal Černý, chairman of the Association of Primary School Principals.
However, the government does not want to say a specific date of return, it has probably learned from mistakes. In mid-October, the then Minister of Health, Prymula, promised that the children would definitely return to the benches on November 2.
“Pitching specific terms not supported by specific data was unfortunate,” Plaga added.
How would the opposition do that? “To give no data, not to say that schools will open on November 2 if the nuclear power plant does not explode, but to say that schools will open when a certain reproduction number is reached,” MP Lukáš Bartoň (Pirates) advised the government.
“I think it was a mistake that the former Minister of Health promised an opening date, creating confusion and false expectations,” said MP Martin Baxa (ODS).
The parents hope that the schools will open for the pupils as soon as possible. “They need to have a regime and it doesn’t work at home, I would return to the first grade, it’s not easy for children or parents, they will spend a lot and they will miss it,” schoolboy Jana’s mother Jana told Nova television.
But even if that happens, the lack of cantors can be a problem. Coronavirus restricts distance teaching, for example at the Jitřní Primary School in Prague 4. Due to sick teachers, the school principal had to shorten online teaching for some classes.
There are dozens of such schools in the country. The Ministry of Health states that 6,600 teachers are currently infected. That’s almost five percent of all teachers.
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