Omikron emergency plan for schools: Minister of Education plans new far-reaching steps

Created: 01/10/2022, 5:08 pm

From: Bedrettin Bölükbasi

Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) has called for better precautions for the increased quarantine cases in schools due to the Omikron variant.

© Michael Kappeler / dpa

Omikron could also have a major impact on education.

Education Minister Stark-Watzinger called for a plan to continue to involve infected teachers and students.

Munich - The corona virus continues to rage through Germany, and this time with a much more contagious mutant.

The omicron variant of the virus is increasing the number of cases and the incidence nationwide.

Politicians fear a considerable loss of staff in areas of critical infrastructure.

As a countermeasure, the quarantine times were recently shortened.

Another area that could be hard hit by the high number of Omikron infections is education.

The high number of teachers absent would have a major impact on teaching.

Here, too, politicians want to take action and apparently work out an emergency plan.

Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) commented on this.

Corona pandemic: Minister of Education wants to continue to involve infected teachers and students - failure planning

“Schools are also a critical infrastructure for me,” said Stark-Watzinger in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin” and added that education must have top priority.

That is why failure planning must now also be integrated into school management.

According to her, both infected teachers and students must still be able to attend classes.

The outage planning means that teachers who have been quarantined, for example, are switched on in a hybrid form and so on should teach.

Students who are in quarantine should also continue to be involved in the class.

“That has to go to school management,” said Stark-Watzinger.

This is part of "so that school lessons can also be offered in a different form at certain points."

Corona pandemic: Minister of Education calls for more vaccinations for schoolchildren - "can understand the worries"

In addition, the Federal Minister of Education also called for increased vaccinations in the age group of schoolchildren. "We have to ensure that there is also a boost in schools," said the FDP politician. The fact that the vaccination rate of the under 18-year-olds is lower than that of the older population is due to the fact that vaccination was only started later in this age group. But now every pupil of this age group has to get a vaccination offer. "Because that is the best way to prevent illnesses and also to shorten quarantine," said the minister.

She also stressed that as a mother, she can understand parents' concerns about whether schools are safe places.

"But we saw that there were large educational gaps in the first Corona waves, that we did not reach the children who deserve our special support," emphasized Stark-Watzinger.

That is why everything must be done "that the schools are as safe as possible - through strict hygiene measures, through the consistent wearing of masks".