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Lessons with masks: learning under more severe conditions (in the Max Schmeling district school in Hamburg, after the summer vacation)
Photo: Daniel Bockwoldt / dpa
Schools and daycare centers should be kept as open as possible, even if the number of infections increases: This was confirmed by Stefanie Hubig, President of the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) and Minister of Education in Rhineland-Palatinate.
The SPD politician told the dpa news agency that the right to education and the health protection of the entire school family were closely monitored.
"In view of the very heterogeneous situation in Germany, nobody can seriously want all schools and daycare centers to have to close completely again," said Hubig.
You have to analyze the situation on site very precisely and arrange suitable measures, as recommended by the Robert Koch Institute.
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For this purpose, the KMK has developed a hygiene concept - last revised at the beginning of September - which primarily relies on regular ventilation and measures such as increased cleaning.
There is no minimum distance between the classes.
However, the concept does not contain clear guidelines as to when which hygiene measures should be tightened or the schools should switch to distance teaching again.
The President of the German Teachers' Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, had therefore accused the states and municipalities of dealing with the corona rules for schools in a contradicting manner.
He is annoyed "that these guidelines for stricter hygiene measures in schools are completely ignored in order to keep schools open for the devil."
Empty promise
The Federal Parents' Council and the two largest teacher representatives, the Education and Science Union (GEW) and the Education and Training Association (VBE), criticized the lack of a link between incidence figures and certain measures in the KMK's pandemic framework.
This framework concept should actually be a support for the federal states, "in the present form, however, this promise will not be kept," said a joint statement by the three associations on Tuesday.
Instead, there must be a clear assignment of limit values to certain scenarios.
"The whole thing runs according to the motto 'recommended speed on motorways': Many can handle it well, few are overly cautious and some tile at 250 kilometers per hour in a traffic jam", criticize the parents and teachers' representatives.
They demand "that the advice from science is taken seriously in order to guarantee the best possible protection for all those involved in schools".
KMK President Hubig said that there was a decisive difference between whether an infection process could be narrowly defined or whether it was widely spread in society.
"Then measures come into force such as compulsory masking in the classroom, switching from distance and face-to-face teaching or even the temporary switch to distance learning - as is currently happening in the federal states."
Unlike in March and April, the SPD politician argued that schools and daycare centers are not the drivers of the pandemic.
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him / dpa
