School back to in-person teaching

Romanian children begin second school semester without the usual break between semesters.

Daniela Budu, 17.01.2022, 14:00

All high schools, schools and kindergartens in Romania
began the second semester with in-person attendance, as changes were made to
the criteria based on which schools can switch to online teaching. The authorities
decided to no longer take into account the local infection rate or the level of
vaccine uptake among the school staff. Instead, schools will only move to
online teaching if the hospital beds for Covid patients in the respective
county are 75% occupied. Education minister Sorin Cîmpeanu:

The reference day for what happens the following week
will be Thursday, and as far as teaching is concerned, the week will not be fragmented,
so it will be either in-person teaching or online teaching for the whole week if
the 75% mark is reached. The second change refers to the switch to online
teaching if three infection cases are reported in a classroom over the course
of seven consecutive days. The whole school will move online when at least half
of the number of classrooms are conducting online classes.

The return to in-person teaching will take place when
the occupancy rate of hospital beds for Covid patients in the respective county
falls below 70%. Pupils are criticising the new rules, saying that in order to
decide the move to online teaching, a complex algorithm is needed to calculate
the epidemiological risk in a given school that takes into account the incidence
rate, the number of available hospital beds, the vaccination rate among the staff
and pupils and the ability of the school to ensure compliance with sanitary
norms and to provide testing. Things are taking place at a slow pace, however,
given that schools have run out of testing kits and the authorities keep
changing the rules hoping that schools can stay open longer. Sorin Cîmpeanu told
Radio Romania:

We all want predictability, but we can’t predict what
form each variant of the virus takes. We can only observe the situation and take
the best measures. This crisis is anything but predictable. We have a duty to
take the most responsible and stable measures.

Last November, after a holiday imposed by the
epidemiological context at the end of October, the education ministry also made
changes to the structure of the school year. Children’s only holiday in the
second semester is in almost three months’ time, while the summer holiday is
set to begin on 11th June. (CM)