Status: 10.12.2021 11:14 a.m.
Do everything to keep schools and universities open: That is the motto of the ministers of education after their deliberations on the current Corona situation. The ministers hold the adults responsible for this.
The education ministers of the federal states have reaffirmed their course for open schools and universities in the corona pandemic. “Keeping schools and universities open continues to have the highest priority in order to guarantee the right of children, adolescents and young people to education and participation,” said the President of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) and Brandenburg’s Minister of Education Britta Ernst.
The resolution states: “Keeping schools open is a task for society as a whole.” After the extensive school closings in the last and penultimate school year, “the burden of which the young generation and their families had to shoulder”, adults now have to take on responsibility and consistently comply with the stricter rules in public life. “Where necessary, further restrictions on contact and access for unvaccinated adults must make an additional contribution to containing the pandemic.”
“Instrument box” for universities
With a view to the universities, too, the ministers of culture have spoken out in favor of continuing the attendance semester. “The high vaccination rate among the students, which is significantly higher than that of the general population, the high level of discipline in adhering to the rules on campus and a differentiated toolbox of infection and hygiene measures are guarantees for the safest possible study, research and teaching on the campus.”
These measures could be adapted according to the local situation in order to maintain the highest possible proportion of face-to-face teaching. “The increase in the vaccination quota remains the decisive adjustment screw for containing the pandemic. The federal states and universities will continue their efforts to inform students about the vaccination offer”, so the KMK.
The day before, the KMK had advised on the current corona situation at schools and universities. In the past week, according to data from the countries, more than 100,000 corona infections were known among schoolchildren.
Teachers’ Association: Do not categorically rule out school closings
In view of this dynamic situation in schools, however, in the opinion of the German Teachers’ Association, school closings are unlikely to be “an absolute taboo” in the future. Against the background of the Omikron variant, it is “dangerous to promise today that schools will never be closed again,” said association president Heinz-Peter Meidinger to the newspapers of the Funke media group. In doing so, politicians would commit a similar mistake as with the general exclusion of a compulsory vaccination. Omikron could “unfortunately lead to the fact that we have to go back to alternating classes,” said Meidinger. Precisely because many children and adolescents have no or insufficient vaccination protection, it must be possible “to fall back on all the tools used to combat pandemics in schools.”
The head of the teachers’ association also complained that, despite all the political announcements, the schools were still “not fully prepared for distance teaching”. “A little more than 50 percent of schools are currently connected to fast Internet,” he criticized.
The virologist Christian Drosten had in the daily topics Underlined the importance of child vaccinations to avoid school closings. He could “really only advise to have the children vaccinated”, emphasized the head of the Virology Department at the Berlin Charité – because of the running of the school, but also with a view to your own health and with a “precautionary consideration”, if it should prove to be true. that the diseases in children are more severe due to the omicron variant. This is currently indicated by data from South Africa.