The Ministry of Education presented a comprehensive outline of tests for the education system about two weeks ago, but a week before the start of the school year, the outline is on the verge of collapse.
The Ministry of Education's outline includes the "Green Classroom" pilot that is supposed to shorten students' isolation days, serological tests designed to locate students who fell ill in Corona and recovered to relieve them of isolation, rapid antigen tests to detect Corona before the school year opens, and a "Education Shield" program. Initiated tests in schools once a week for early detection of morbidity in orange and red localities.
However, yesterday after conducting an audit, the Ministry of Education announced that the serological tests would be reduced to localities where there was more than 10% morbidity.
At the same time, one of the two schools participating in the "Green Class" pilot was almost completely shut down, after a high morbidity of students was discovered in it.
At the same time, although the logistics corps works around the clock to assemble the rapid test kits, any delay could result in them not arriving at schools on time.
About 2.4 million students are scheduled to begin the school year, but in the meantime the number of patients in the education system continues to rise.
On Tuesday, 4,492 new corona students were diagnosed.
The fear is that in September the number of sick students will increase and there are those who even talk about 7,000 verified students to Corona every day.
It is already known that there will be a lot of students who will stay at home - the sick students in Corona and the students who are in isolation.
Yesterday, the number of these two groups stood at 113,966 students, of whom 28,225 were verified for Corona and another 85,741 students who are in isolation - who will not attend school.
In addition, some 210,000 teaching staff are expected to open this year, but 7,354 staff members are absent due to illness or isolation.
Serological tests were reduced
It was probably only a matter of time, and after the birth control and the big criticism that the resources are not worth the investment - the Ministry of Education announced that the serological testing program designed to detect antibodies in students and exempt them from isolation will be reduced, and henceforth only 10% morbidity.
Data from the Alon headquarters in the Home Front Command show that by Tuesday morning, 154,962 tests had been performed, and the positive rate was 5.7%, while data from the ultra-Orthodox sector (where sampling began a week and a half ago) were 16.5% positive.
Following an assessment of the situation, in which the Ministries of Health, Education, Local Government and the IDF were partners, it was decided to focus the tests on localities where the morbidity rate, which has so far been higher than 10%.
Serological examination for children // Photo: Yossi Zeliger,
Responding to criticism that the sampling program consumes a lot of resources, but does not benefit and can not exempt from isolating a high proportion of students as hoped, a military source said: "To say it is ineffective - this is retrospective wisdom. "That he had criticism should have been said in real time when the decision was made, and not after we made a huge operation here, which we worked on day and night for a period of a week."
The classroom is no longer green
The "Green Class" pilot began operating in two schools in one locality in the lowlands.
"Israel Today" has learned that one of the schools participating in the pilot has closed almost completely due to high morbidity, and does not continue to teach frontally as planned.
According to the pilot, classmates exposed to a sick student do not go into isolation for a week but only the sick student.
The rest of the students stay to study in class and undergo corona tests daily.
The implication is that if another student is found sick - only he will go into isolation, and the rest of the students will continue to study and undergo tests daily.
But in practice, almost all the students in the said school switched to distance learning.
This is a school for grades 1-8, of which six layers were sent for home learning (grades 8-8) and some of the students for isolation.
On the other hand, only grades A and B remained in school after five patients were discovered in the other classes.
This means that currently the pilot has been significantly reduced and in fact discontinued at the same school.
Among other things, the school principal and his deputy were also infected in Corona.
The importance of the "green class" pilot is enormous, as it is based on it to decide whether it will be possible to shorten students' isolation days, or they will be obliged to go into full week isolation and miss many school days.
Corona testing complex for children // Photo: Herzli Shapira,
The race for the antigen
The education system is in a race to provide schools and from there to parents of students 1.9 million kits for rapid corona tests (antigen).
The goal is for the test to be performed about 48 hours before the start of the school year by the parents, and to create a "green island" in the school that will only be entered by students who are negative about Corona on the quick test.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of tests will be distributed to teachers and education staff.
This is a huge logistical operation, led by the IDF Logistics Corps. Due to the short schedules, the IDF will also be the one to distribute the assessments to schools throughout the southern region.
A source in the Ministry of Education has already expressed concern that the complexity of the project will delay the arrival of some of the tests in schools.
Military operation to increase the rate of antigen testing // Photo: IDF Spokesman,
In contrast to the test kits purchased, here the components came from several companies, so the huge crates that contained the test components were dismantled.
Since then, about 2,300 soldiers have been assembling personal kits.
The soldiers work 24 hours a day, in three 8-hour shifts, in order to meet the goal of packing about 2 million tests.
For the purpose of the operation, two huge halls were converted into packing booths, each of which is commanded by a commander with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Resistors criticize the work of the packers.
After the soldiers pack the tests for personal kits, some are transferred to the logistics warehouse of the Ministry of Education in Modi'in, and some will be distributed by the IDF directly to the schools. A battle for soldiers who were rebranded and inside which the tests were packed.
This is a very sensitive test that must be at a temperature of up to 30 degrees - which makes the whole process complex, probably in the heat of the south of the country.
Yesterday (Tuesday) there were already about 600,000 ready-made test kits in the Ministry of Health's warehouses.
With the remaining time, they plan to pack another 650,000 tests each day and finish the operation by Friday morning.
This schedule will leave two days to distribute the tests to parents, who are supposed to come and pick them up at schools before school starts on Wednesday, and to perform the test no later than the day before the start of the school year.
Participated in the preparation of the article: Meital Yasur Beit-Or