Editorial Closing schools would be costly for children

Switching schoolchildren to a distance school would not significantly curb the coronavirus epidemic. Instead, it would cause major problems for children and young people.

Social and health Ministry (STM) wants the government to propose a transition of schools to distance education to continue the Christmas holidays.

Chancellor Kirsi Varhila confirmed the plan on Wednesday Ylelle. The proposal will apparently be made to the government’s corona group, which will meet on Friday. The ministry also wants more restrictions on public events and restaurant opening hours. The background is the rapid spread of the coronavirus omicron transformation. Over the past week, more than 6,500 new infections have been detected in a day, but most of those infected have a mild illness.

Concerns about the growing epidemic are justified, so effective action is needed. The most important of these is increasing vaccinations, but that alone is not enough. For example, a temporary instruction to allow a person with coronary symptoms to be absent from work would make sense. Any new restrictions on opening hours or other restrictions should be based on an expert assessment by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) of the risk of infection in the various functions.

Closing schools sounds like a very hasty idea. In particular, STM’s approach and timing are confusing. The rise in corona infections has been visible for weeks, but STM decided to propose a transition to a distance school last year without discussing the matter with other ministers. Minister of Education Li Andersson (left) has already had time be astonished STM’s operations.

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Instead, Olli Luukkainen, chairman of the teachers’ trade union (OAJ), hurried to support the transition to distance school, which suggests that the teachers’ association has also taken the initiative towards the ministry.

Luukkainen also wants the youngest, ie 1st-3rd graders, and special education to attend a distance school, and his thoughts are clearly not about a short time. According to Luukkainen, it would only be possible to return to the local school when all willing teachers have three vaccinations and the vaccinations of schoolchildren have progressed “massively”.

STM: n activities raise questions. Has a panic button been printed in the ministry or is it a question of the political calculation of the ministry and the Minister for Family and Basic Services Krista Kiuru (sd)? Kiuru may calculate that the decision will go through with a sudden rush. Or if it doesn’t, at least STM has tried something.

The infection rates in the next few weeks will inevitably be so high that many quarters may begin to question the culprits. The first suspect is, of course, the STM, which has centralized power and responsibility for treating the epidemic. Kiuru may have a desire to anticipate the situation with blatant initiatives, the content of which may not even matter. In mid-December, the Minister for Family and Basic Services received a lot of positive publicity on a list of demands that included ideas pulled from his sleeve, such as increasing traceability.

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To a distance school the transition can be justified by the fact that a fairly large proportion of infections are now in people under the age of 18 who are less protected from vaccination than their parents. On the other hand, infections have spread rapidly during the school Christmas holidays, so it is clearly not just a matter of school. Young people can also meet each other outside of school.

The benefits of school restrictions are questionable. Published by THL in November in the study There was no significant difference in infections between 13–15-year-olds in areas where schools were closed and areas where schools were kept open. THL does not even recommend closing schools.

Instead, the disadvantages of school restrictions are undeniable. At the Universities of Helsinki and Tampere research as many as half of upper secondary school students felt that their learning outcomes had clearly deteriorated during the spring 2020 distance school phase. The distance school clearly increased the learning gaps of the students, as the less well-off fell off the ride or disappeared, while a small number of successful people could even benefit from distance learning.

Pupil nausea became more common, the workload of teachers increased and half of the parents of distance school students report their own stress due to increased distance school. In addition to declining learning outcomes, distance school has been shown to increase children’s social problems and loneliness.

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Epidemic restraint by restricting school attendance is not only questionable in its effectiveness but also ethically problematic, as the majority of children and adolescents with primary illness suffer from the disease in a very mild manner. Instead, they pay an unreasonable price for closing schools. In addition to the specific disadvantages, it is a question of the unique youth of schoolchildren: student writings, dances of the old, and numerous other experiences that the young do not get back.

One may well ask whether decision-makers would act differently if the voice of young people were better heard in public and, for example, in the ballot box.

In the shadow of the two-year-old corona epidemic, the age group has grown, and its experiences will be mapped in the same way as the effects of the recession of the 1990s on children of that time have been monitored. Several of the ministers in the current government, such as Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SD), have recalled how badly children are suffering from the recession. Now the disciplinarian is not a recession but an epidemic, but again the children and young people are paying the bill.

The editorials are HS’s statements on a topical issue. The writings are prepared by HS’s editorial staff and reflect the magazine principle.

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