The Ministry of Health will allow first- and second-year students to return to classes without capsules, but experts warn: "The extent of isolation will intensify" • The condition: up to 1,000 patients a day • Bad news for kindergarten teachers with children: Kindergartens will return long before Sunday-Wednesday
Will return later, without capsules.
First grade lesson
Photography:
Joshua Joseph
Long return to routine:
5th to 12th graders will return to study in classrooms only when the morbidity situation in Israel is no more than 250 patients a day, and grades 1-4 will return before then, when the daily morbidity will be 1,000 patients. Health regarding the education system.
"The return of students will take place as the school year began," says Dr. Efrat Aflalo, director of the education department at the Ministry of Health. "We do not require capsules in kindergartens or in first and second grades.
It is important to note that this outline is in stark contrast to the opinion of all the experts, who advised the Cabinet and the Ministry of Education to study in small groups (capsules) in all age groups.
The outline also includes the return of kindergartens (6-3) in the first stage - when the daily morbidity level will be 2,000 per day and when the coefficient of infection will be 0.8.
But the new outline will be slightly different from the previous outline: as published in "Israel Today", the Ministry of Health demands that there be no more passage of adults, teachers and external operators between groups of students.
It should be noted that before the closure, the Ministry of Education allowed "substitute kindergarteners" to visit six different kindergartens a week.
About this, Dr. Efrat Aflalo said: "We know that children are contagious and contagious, and we also know that a great deal of the morbidity in the educational frameworks stems from the infection of children by adults.
That is why we want to limit this matter. "
Parents will demonstrate today
Today, parents of kindergarten children from all over the country are expected to demonstrate at 17:00 in Habima Square in Tel Aviv, demanding that the educational frameworks for preschool children be opened this coming Sunday.
Another issue, especially critical, concerns after-school programs, which allow parents to go to work for a full working day.
The Ministries of Health and Education are now considering imposing restrictions on mixing groups in daycare.
The outlines of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education do look nice "on paper", but in the end, those who are supposed to approve them are members of the Corona Cabinet.
Education Minister Yoav Galant, who is not a member of the team, presented a plan for a "two-color" model - red or green, so that every school (even in a red city) will be closed or opened according to its morbidity data.
This plan, as well as the outlines of the Ministry of Health, are completely contrary to the opinion of the various experts, who argue that students of all ages in the education system, including kindergartens and grades 1-2, must study in hermetic capsules (small groups of up to 18 students) and that Open studies in red cities.
But above all, there is also the consideration of the enormous economic cost that a classroom split program entails in the entire education system.
According to Prof. Ronit Calderon-Margalit, of the Hadassah School of Public Health at the Hebrew University, "a return without capsules greatly increases the extent of isolation following a verified case.
She adds that "children should be carefully mixed and avoided in daycare."
Kindergarten students will be hurt
The outline of the Ministry of Health and Education, if approved, could lead to chaos in the education system.
There are about 20,000 kindergartens in Israel, and the system has always faced a shortage of kindergarten teachers.
For this purpose, students who have not yet completed their studies are recruited from the teaching schools for the position of teacher.
Kindergartens' return to routine before the return of first-fourth grades will hurt kindergarten teachers who are mothers to students in these strata, as they will be forced to return to work while their children have not yet returned to the frameworks.
Surprisingly, almost eight months since the outbreak of the corona crisis, the Ministry of Education does not know for sure the percentage of kindergarten teachers who have children between the ages of one and four.
In addition, according to the outline, there will be no transition of kindergarten teachers between kindergartens, which means that the kindergarten teacher's free day will be canceled - and they will work from Sunday to Thursday, so that Friday will be everyone's free day.
This will create a problem for gardeners who need a day off to complete one day of the week, which has been their day off so far.
If they are forced to come to kindergarten every day, they will not be able to stay and study academic courses through the zoom - which will delay their graduation and graduation.