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Health Minister Spahn wants to prevent schools from having to close in the Corona crisis. His suggestion: as soon as an infection occurs, the entire class should be sent to home isolation.
In the debate over corona infections among school children, Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn proposed a new concept to prevent entire schools from closing. “It is very important for children and their parents that schools and kindergartens remain open,” Spahn told the publishing network newspapers in Germany in the run-up to new federal-state consultations.
The minister suggested rapid tests. In case of infection, the entire affected class should be isolated at home immediately. “After the negative quick tests on the fifth day, the students were able to go back to school,” Spahn said. Whether this is feasible has yet to be debated. It is important to find pragmatic solutions.
On Wednesday, state heads of government and Chancellor Angela Merkel want to discuss the crown’s rules again. Beforehand, there is a growing demand to focus more on the situation in schools.
GEW asks for free masks
The federal president of the GEW education union, Marlis Tepe, asked for free masks for students and teachers. Teachers should also receive particularly good FFP2 protective masks for free, Tepe told the newspapers of the Funke media group. If schools are to remain open as long as possible, protection against infection must be the top priority. This included “in addition to alternate classes, hygiene measures, keeping distance, regular room ventilation, and occasionally wearing masks at school.”
Temporary mask requirement?
As reported on Saturday by the news portal “ThePioneer”, the ministers of education of the federal states are proposing a temporary mask requirement in secondary schools to curb the increase in the incidence of infections in schools. From the upper level onwards, “continuous face-to-face teaching” will be used in smaller learning groups and, in the second step, it will be expanded to grade levels at the lower secondary level. The start of lessons can be staggered to reduce the risk of infection on local public transport.
At the same time, according to the report, a resolution document of the Permanent Conference emphasizes that teaching in the classroom in schools is “the best way.” Many students from educationally disadvantaged families would be disadvantaged in their learning processes by distance learning. In schools affected by infections, there should be more real-time testing.
Merz: using hotels as classrooms
Meanwhile, CDU presidential candidate Friedrich Merz mentioned the use of currently closed hotels for school classes. “You could move to hotels or other large rooms, and schools could offer lessons in shifts,” Merz told the “Tagesspiegel.” It is essential to keep the number of missed lessons as low as possible. “The damage that otherwise occurs cannot be repaired with money,” Merz warned. Those responsible had to develop more imagination on how the lessons could be maintained.
