The extraordinary joint meeting of the inter-territorial councils of the National Health System (CISNS), of Education and the General Conference of University Policy – of which the ministers of each area Carolina Darias, Pilar Alegría and Joan Subirats, respectively, and the regional councilors – has ended with a consensus “that has not been easy but possible”, in the words of Darias. Finally, there has been regional unanimity in the idea that all classes are face-to-face and start next Monday.
Alegría took advantage of the press conference to send a message of reassurance to the families when they returned to the classroom after the Christmas holidays, next Monday, January 10: “Prudence yes, but scaremongering, none”. The Minister of Education has emphasized that in the entire pandemic in schools there have been no “exported cases.” “We have imported them from other environments.”
Subirats, who made his debut before the press as minister, has reinforced this idea: “We must avoid the feeling of constant change in the health situation, generate certainty, a feeling of protection. I am aware because this course I have been able to live it. Universities are prepared to face this issue ”. The Catalan politician was a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona when he was appointed minister on December 17.
Madrid, where they have been held raves and mass parties, he threatened this Christmas with leaving the students at home from the 3rd year of secondary school if the accumulated incidence at 14 days was high – and it is runaway, 2,600 this Monday in this community – but finally he has not decided on virtual education . Murcia has not been discordant either, although its Health Minister, Juan José Pedreño, had trusted the return to school to the pandemic situation of autonomy, and this community is currently well below the average (1,529 accumulated incidence this Monday) .
Alegría has regretted that there has been “a debate about the return to class” and that this has “been able to generate the image that [los centros educativos] they are not safe spaces ”, although“ it has become very clear that they are containment spaces ”. Asked if she was referring to the doubts raised by the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, with her words, the minister has assured that she was not. Enrique Ossorio, Minister of Education and Universities of the community, then added fuel to the fire, describing the meeting with the ministers as “paripé”: “It has not served any purpose, since no decision has been made.”
Education recognizes that there will be a “rebound in cases” after the omicron explosion and is aware that there will be many losses of teachers who will have to quarantine for being infected, but Alegría assures that, “for a long time, the communities have been blocking the planning to face the next few weeks ”.
Teachers ‘unions and parents’ associations of all kinds had called for a face-to-face return to the classrooms. The association Yo No Renuncio del Club de Malasmadres and the NGO Save the Children even sent a letter to the autonomous communities to demand physical presence: “The impact [de la virtualidad] in the education or mental health of the boys and girls, as well as in the families in terms of conciliation, it makes this should be the last resort ”.
The recent Save the Children report Grow healthy states that 4% of boys and girls between the ages of 4 and 14 present some type of mental disorder during the pandemic, while almost 7% have conduct disorders, when before the onset of covid these percentages were 1 , 1% and 2.5%, respectively.
The end of the quarantines of entire groups in primary and infantile, if it ever occurs, will have to wait. Although the Government is studying this possibility, the review of the Action guide in the event of covid-19 cases in educational centers that prepares Health, according to a spokesman for the Ministry of Education, “still has a long way to go.” It will be seen later in the Alert Report and has to be approved in an inter-territorial conference that brings together only the Health Councilors. “We have guides to handle contagion cases in the classrooms. We must follow the roadmap ”, Darias insisted in reference to the current update of the aforementioned protocol for schools, on September 7. Andalusia and Madrid are going to remove these quarantines and Ossorio has been proud to “get ahead of the Government.”
High vaccination forecasts
According to government forecasts, more than 70% of schoolchildren between 5 and 11 years old will have received at least the first dose of the vaccine in the first week of February – 28.8% were immunized last Sunday – and this will stop the increase in cases after the return to classes that is already available. In the last school week of December, 1.3% of the classrooms were quarantined (5,433, barely a hundred from secondary and FP) – the worst figure since schools were reopened in September 2020 – and it is estimated that that level will now be surpassed with the omicron explosion.
In the university, as in secondary school, entire classes are not isolated, because they are not bubble groups and, above all, because most of the students are already vaccinated (84.7% of the population between 20 and 29 years old was immunized last Sunday), which exempts the quarantine. University students are concerned about the exam period that begins now and that concentrates dozens of people in the same space. The Coordinator of Student Representatives from Public Universities (CREUP) and the State University Student Council (CEUNE) have shown their concern on Tuesday in a joint note on “what will happen to the student body who is confined in order to monitor their classes or the taking of their exams, since not all universities contemplate guarantees in their protocols so that they do not lose their right to evaluation or to continue teaching ”. They claim, above all, to increase investment in forced ventilation, “which cannot depend on opening the windows in the face of the drop in temperatures.”
Subirats has tried that the presence of the exams, which faced his predecessor Manuel Castells with the rectors, does not become his first obstacle. The rectors made it clear this Monday in a statement that there will be no virtual evaluations, more complex to supervise: “The return to the campuses will be possible, once again, thanks to the experience accumulated by the universities in the application of hygienic-sanitary measures. in these almost two years of pandemic ”. While CREUP and CEUNE consider the anticovid protocols “insufficient” and maintain that the student body will face “the loss of examination rights or inadequate conditions.” At the press conference, Subirats recalled that there is university autonomy in the application of the protocol, but has made “an important exception: students who, being infected, cannot attend exams ”. And he said that they are “working so that measures are adopted so that they do not lose the examination session.” The rectors have assured in a subsequent statement that they are committed to evaluating these infected students.
Evidence of errors: in an initial version it was stated that the forecast is that 90% of children between 5 and 11 years old will have a first vaccination by the end of January,
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