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NRW starts with masks in class

2020-08-12T06:46:10.374Z


When NRW starts the new school year, not only the nationwide unique mask requirement in the class will be viewed critically. It is also about Laschet's corona crisis management and his suitability for higher orders. For the opposition he's just a "flip-flopper".


When NRW starts the new school year, not only the nationwide unique mask requirement in the class will be viewed critically. It is also about Laschet's corona crisis management and his suitability for higher orders. For the opposition he's just a "flip-flopper".

Düsseldorf (dpa) - Mask requirement in class in the sweltering heat: In North Rhine-Westphalia, the dress rehearsal starts this Wednesday with the start of school after six and a half weeks of summer vacation.

The whole of Germany is looking to see if and how the special route of the most populous federal state works, because nationwide mask compulsory in class has so far only existed here. The only exceptions are primary and special schools.

Not only the conditions for students and teachers on site are under close observation, but also the entire corona crisis management of Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU), which has been heavily controversial from the start. "We have to be particularly careful these days," Laschet justifies his course. Therefore, the NRW-wide mask requirement, initially limited to the end of August, is correct. In other federal states, this regulation only applies to individual schools.

Several teachers and parents' associations had expressed concerns about the return of the around 2.5 million pupils to regular operations at 2500 schools across the country, because, in their opinion, insufficient care was taken to protect against infection in large classes.

Among other things, the education and science union - like the state parliament opposition - misses intelligent concepts for equalizing teaching, for example through "shift work" and outdoor activities. What if masses of schoolchildren in North Rhine-Westphalia are now infected with Corona, schools have to be closed and the infection figures, which have been increasing for weeks, make it necessary to restrict public life again?

"A lot is at stake for Armin Laschet at the moment," states political scientist Ulrich von Alemann. His "relaxation exercises" in Corona crisis management were "not well received by the population and in the Union," he told the dpa. "It remains to be seen whether he will be able to score points with tough school management and new, strict protective requirements."

After all, Laschet currently has to prove himself in the "triathlon" for popularity among the population, the party leadership of the CDU and the candidacy for chancellor for the Union. After Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) had left the NRW Prime Minister far behind in the polls in terms of popularity and suitability for chancellor, it was "almost impossible" to catch up with this lead, said von Alemann.

A fiasco in the corona crisis management at schools, which directly affects millions of parents, teachers and students in North Rhine-Westphalia, would not be a recommendation for higher ordinations. The opposition leader in the Düsseldorf state parliament, Thomas Kutschaty, already sees Laschet "flying blind with corona politics". So far, the black-and-yellow state government has mainly been noticed by its "back and forth", said the SPD parliamentary group leader of the dpa.

"After Armin Laschet clearly hit the wall with his easing course, he is suddenly giving the hardliner at school start," said the former NRW Minister of Justice. "In the US it's called a flip-flopper." After the state government failed to implement a consistent test strategy at an early stage, the mask requirement in schools is now "unfortunately necessary".

This is disputed nationwide among teachers, parents, doctors and scientists. While the Marburger Bund sees the mask requirement in class as a senseless, "superfluous handicap", a group of renowned scientists classifies it as recommendable in a statement by the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

It is also controversial whether entire schools should be closed after corona infections. "If a corona case occurs in a school, the school does not have to be closed for 14 days," said medical president Klaus Reinhardt of the "Rheinische Post" (Wednesday). It is enough if individual classes or courses stay at home.

At least no political party or well-known association in North Rhine-Westphalia has spoken out in favor of staying at a distance while learning to be on the safe side and relying on home schooling again. School Minister Yvonne Gebauer (FDP) admits that not all students could be taken with them in the weeks leading up to the holidays, but that educational disadvantages arose. The state student council has also warned against this.

NRW is now starting the new school year as the sixth federal state after Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg and Berlin. Laschet's entire political existence is not at stake with the outcome of the full school operation experiment in the Corona year, emphasized von Alemann. "If Söder presents his Bavarian office as the most beautiful in the world, why doesn't Laschet do the same?" In NRW he is "not yet challenged".

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 200812-99-135509 / 2

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-08-12

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