Ever since March, 2020, with the exception of several months in the
\nSeptember-November period, Romanian children studied from home. Due to the
\ncoronavirus, the authorities decided to introduce remote teaching across the
\ncountry. The measure took teachers and pupils by surprise, and parents too made
\nconsiderable efforts to adapt to the new format, which they hoped would be only
\na short-term solution. The situation continued, however, over the course of
\nnearly a whole year, despite repeated warnings that online teaching is
\nineffective and unsustainable in the long-term. Pupils in underprivileged areas
\nwere hit the hardest, as they had no access to education during the interval,
\neither lacking computers or Internet connections. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Against this backdrop, after
\ncountless debates on the topic and in the wake of an assessment of the epidemiological
\ncontext, the authorities decided pupils should return to physical class
\nattendance starting February 8, with the start of the second half of the school
\nyear. The end of last week was thus used to clean schools and adapt them to the
\nnew regulations transmitted overnight by the Health and Education Ministries.
\nEntry and exit circuits in schooling units were changed, thermal scanners were
\nset up and classes were sanitized. Pupils will have to wear masks at all times. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are three scenarios under which schools will function in this period, each
\ndepending on the infection rate reported in the area. If the rate is under 1
\nper thousand inhabitants, all pre-school children and pupils will attend
\nclasses physically. Wherever the infection rate stands between 1 and 3, only
\nschool children, and pupils in elementary or terminal grades will go to school,
\nwhile the rest will study from home. Finally, if the infection rate is above 3,
\nonly pre-school and elementary school children will go to school. For the time
\nbeing, some 2,200 towns and villages are placed in the green scenario, 900 in
\nthe yellow one and 150 in the red scenario. Wherever an infection is reported
\nin a group of pupils, all classes will be suspended for 14 days. In secondary
\neducation units an epidemiological investigation will be conducted and pupils
\nwill be tested. The Directorate for Public Health will decide whether classes
\nwill be suspended or not. The reopening of schools will thus test the capacity
\nof the education and healthcare systems of dealing with such activities. It is
\nalso a sign at society level that things are slowly returning to their normal
\ntrack. The authorities, however, have advised caution. (V. Palcu)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some 2.4 million pupils returned to physical class attendance in schools this Monday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":85979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[35374,40180,40181,30883],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-88028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-covid-19","tag-infection-rate","tag-physical-class-attendance","tag-school-year"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n