Reps: If one student is infected, whole class will start distance learning
Minister of Education and Research Mailis Reps (Center) said all schools in Estonia will start as usual in September but changes will be made regarding opening ceremonies and if one student in the classroom becomes infected with COVID-19, the whole class will move to distance learning.
Reps said at a press conference on Wednesday that, luckily, the quality of education was not affected by the emergency situation but many schools still have to go over what was taught in spring.
Reps said: "The message regarding the starting of the academic year is that there is no overall need to continue learning digitally. Our numbers are very positive, we have been able to control the spread of the coronavirus but it has not disappeared from society."
The education minister added that a regional school-based local approach will be taken regarding the starting school year.
Reps said a local crisis committee will meet if 10 percent of the region's school students test positive for COVID-19. She specified that the number is an approximate because the context is different in, for example, a school with 20 children.
She added: "Let us remind ourselves that - as we agreed in spring - additional high school final exams will take place in fall and quite a few students have already registered for those."
Reps added that attention will also be turned on digital textbooks so teachers would not have to carry the burden of teaching both digitally and in the physical classroom.
The minister added that schools and other similar establishments also hold the right of sending children home and can also measure body temperatures regularly.
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Editor: Kristjan Kallaste