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Lessons with a mask: The specifications in the federal states may differ further until May
Photo: Gregor Fischer / dpa
The education ministers of the 16 federal states have unanimously agreed to phase out the corona protection measures in schools by May at the latest.
This was announced by Schleswig-Holstein's Education Minister Karin Prien after the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) in Lübeck.
The quarantine at home, which represents a high psychosocial burden for children and young people and results in an unnecessary interruption of their day-to-day daycare and school life, should also be abolished.
The schools should not be exempt if the restrictions in other areas of society fall, said Hamburg's Education Senator Thies Rabe.
The signal from the federal government to let the protective measures expire encouraged the KMK to give a clear time perspective for the first time, the minister continued.
Legal basis is missing
The federal government had announced that it would end most corona measures by March 20th.
The federal states should be able to take further protective measures if necessary via a hotspot rule, but the law has not yet been passed.
Prien said that a "federal legal basis beyond March 20" was needed to "gradually and cautiously" withdraw the protective measures.
That means: It is still unclear how things will continue for the students in one and a half weeks.
When asked, the Hamburg school authorities, for example, said “cannot yet say for sure” whether it is even possible to extend the mask requirement in schools beyond March 20th.
It is also unclear whether a decision by the citizenship is necessary for this.
If it is legally possible, however, it is planned to maintain the obligation to wear masks, tests and ventilation as well as the operation of air filters for two weeks from March 20th.
Each country continues to decide for itself
The joint decision of the KMK does not change the fact that there could still be different requirements in each country until May.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has already abolished the obligation to wear masks in the classroom, but in Bavaria the coalition partners disagree on how long it should continue to apply.
Teachers' Association President Heinz-Peter Meidinger told the "Rheinische Post" that he was expecting an "even more colorful and rationally hardly comprehensible patchwork of corona protection in schools".
He warned against abolishing the mask requirement in schools despite the increasing incidence of corona in many places.
Hesse's Minister of Education, Alexander Lorz, was optimistic after the KMK.
You can give the children the prospect of going back to normal school operations over the summer.
However, we do not yet know how it will be in autumn.
sun/dpa