Back to School? Officials Move Warily as Challenges Loom
Authorities worldwide face the formidable challenge of returning millions of children to classrooms shut due to the coronavirus outbreak, weighing the need to limit the educational damage against the risks of fuelling a surge in new cases.
Although young people appear less vulnerable to Covid-19, experts say they could still be a vector for contagion, a major worry for both parents and teachers.
“Some are impatient to renew the contact with students, but others are scared,” said Mr Xavier Toussaint, a secondary school teacher in Waterloo, Belgium.
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And even if the crisis eases, social distancing measures will drastically change how classrooms look – and how children interact with their teachers and one another – for months, if not years.
At Mr Toussaint’s school of 800 students, only 10 classes consisting of small groups will resume from May 18, meaning officials will have to choose who can come.
“The requirement is a maximum of 10 per class, with four sq m of space per student, plus eight sq m for the teacher,” he said.
Similar restrictions are planned across Europe: France is ordering continual hand washing throughout the day, no group play at recess, one-way hallways to avoid mingling, and face masks for all but the youngest students.
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Parents are also urged to take their children’s temperature each morning when the country begins its staggered returns this week.
In Paris, schools will be able to accommodate just 15 per cent of students, Mayor Anne Hidalgo said last week.
She and more than 300 other mayors in the greater Paris region have called for the returns to be pushed back, echoing worries in other countries keeping most schools shut for now.
Italy and Spain, hit hard by the coronavirus, have cancelled classes until September, as have Bulgaria, Ireland, Portugal, Tunisia and the US state of New York.
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In China’s Wuhan, where the outbreak erupted last December, students began returning to class only last week, wearing masks and walking in single file past thermal scanners, after being shut out since January.
At the height of the crisis, an estimated 1.5 billion learners from kindergarten to university were stuck at home in 195 countries, a number that stood at 1.3 billion as of last Thursday, the United Nations (UN) education agency Unesco said.
It has warned the lockdowns could further widen education gaps between rich and poor, since half the world’s students lack access to computers for home schooling.
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“The decision on when and how to reopen schools is far from simple,” Unesco chief Audrey Azoulay said last week. “But as numerous students fall behind in their learning… reopening must be a priority.”
Even in developed countries, officials are racing for students to have at least a few weeks in the classroom before the summer break, a tacit admission that distance learning cannot make up for the educational deficit from two months or more of home confinement.
“It’s not bad that they do it in this way,” said Ms Alice Laval, a French teacher in Vienna who agreed homeschooling had increased disparities between students with good support networks and those without.
“At first it will be all about checking how the kids are doing,” she said of the return.
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SOURCE
Author: Joëlle GARRUS
Publication: AFP Bureau
Title: Back to school? Officials move warily as challenges loom
