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The fall term ended with distance education also for upper secondary schools in many parts of the country, following an infection control decision in the regions. For upper secondary school, there are national guidelines from the Swedish Public Health Agency, but not for compulsory schools.
This has created uncertainty in several places regarding how schools are expected to fare when they reopen for the spring term.
Region Blekinge’s Reviews the question on Tuesday afternoon after the municipalities have made the formal decisions. Ronneby Township has posted information on its website confirming that all county municipal schools will operate remotely in any event.
“Blekinge Municipal Upper Secondary Schools will transfer to distance education during the first two weeks of the semester on the advice of Blekinge Infection Control,” writes the municipality.
The reason is said to be the very high spread rate in Blekinge during the month of December.
– There is an imminent risk that the situation will deteriorate further after the Christmas and New Year holidays, when people return to their workplaces and schools open. Then people from different backgrounds mix again and new chains of infection are easily created, says infection control doctor Bengt Wittesjö in a comment.
Blekinge, however, is quite only to have distance education from the beginning during the spring term, although infection control in the Västerbotten region previously recommended that secondary school students in the center of Umeå continue with distance education a few days after the spring term .
In the Stockholm region it is teaching on site and in accordance with the school year calendar.
“Smittskydd Stockholm decided to recommend to upper secondary schools to provide distance education the last week before the Christmas holidays. There are currently no recommendations for distance continuing education for upper secondary school and infection control. Stockholm has no plans to issue such a recommendation, ”writes Maria Rotzén Östlund, the region’s infection control physician, in an email response to DN.
Skåne Region responds that There is no position on the issue at the moment, which means that it appears that schools are opening as usual, while the Västra Götaland region believes it is up to each municipality or school.
DN has called some of the larger municipalities there.
The municipality of Gothenburg has no distance education plans and has regular school starts, as do the municipalities of Skövde and Borås.
– We are prepared for any distance learning, but nothing is staged. Students will start as usual after the holidays, says the head of department of the elementary school in the municipality of Uddevalla, Peter Madsen
Kungälv will also start as usual, unless there are new directives.
The National Education Agency has no one meeting information on how it looks, and the Swedish Public Health Agency has not issued any general recommendation for upper secondary school, unlike upper secondary school.
Parents and students can check the information for their respective schools.
According to state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell from the Swedish Public Health Agency, they are following the issue and discussing it with the National Education Agency and relevant authorities.
Do you support the recommendation that schools teach on-site when spring term begins?
– We have a continuous dialogue to find a good solution. We understand that there is a need in different directions, both to keep schools running because the students really need it, and also that they are concerned for infection control reasons because they have a wide spread of infection in certain parts of the country. So far we have not landed on this, there are ongoing discussions.
For upper secondary schools Homeschooling continued until at least January 24, following a decision by the Swedish Public Health Agency on an extension.
