Doubts cast over timing of school start

The Association of School Principals has sent a letter to the education authorities outlining its concerns over the Covid infection risks of sending more than 7,000 children to school on Tuesday.

Hans Jón Thomsen, principal of Hoyvíkar skúli, is of the clear opinion that it is not safe to send children to school at this point, especially if more than 100 children will gather in the same place.

”Although we have prepared well for the reopening, we are also perfectly aware that a school is a dynamic place and we simply cannot guarantee that all the safety guidelines will be strictly followed at all times,” he says.

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Anna Dalsgaard, who has worked for 30 years as a teacher, says that postponing Tuesday’s school start or adopting a more phased reopening strategy would be much safer than sending all the children to school at the same time.

“I think I can speak for many teachers across the country when I say that it would be wise to wait one or two weeks until we have a clearer understanding of the current Covid-19 situation,” she says.

She believes it will be difficult, maybe even impossible, to adhere to the distancing guidelines.

“A standard classroom in a large school fits 22 children, which makes it impossible to adhere to the 1-metre minimum distance recommendation.”

In a brief statement, the education authority says that school start and related issues are currently being discussed and that schools will be informed of the outcome of these talks in the coming days.

“No parents inside” rule questioned

Some school principals have also said that the recommendation for parents to drop off their children outside the school entrance is not advisable in practice.

Many of the country’s large schools are planning to flout this guideline and allow parents of first-time schoolchildren to enter the schools on the first day of school.

School principals have told KvF.fo that it can have a negative psychological effect on first-time schoolchildren to be left all alone inside a school, an entirely new environment where they don’t know most of the people around them.

“If it’s too risky to allow parents of first-time schoolchildren to enter the school, then it would be much wiser to postpone the reopening of our schools,” says one school principal.

A total of 718 children, most of whom born in 2013, will have their first day of school this year.

For further information about Covid-19 in the Faroes, visit corona.fo.

Translated by prosa.fo