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AFP
Rostock, Germany
Lunchbox, books, pencil case -- masks? Thousands of children in northern Germany became the first in Europe to begin a new school year on Monday after months of curtailed hours over the coronavirus pandemic.
The rest of the country was watching anxiously as 150,000 children returned to school in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany’s first state to restart full-time classes after the summer holidays, with infection numbers on the rise again.
Education ministers of Germany’s 16 states had agreed for schools to reopen full-time after the summer break, after offering only partial hours in the weeks when the lockdown was eased.
With children in Hamburg to also return to school later this week and Berlin to follow next week, a debate is now growing over whether full-time school is realistic as infection numbers rise above 500 per day again.
But officials warn that children cannot afford to miss more school. “The children need to be present in school because we have to prevent more lost time,” Steffen Kaestner, headteacher of the CJD Jugenddorf-Christophorus school in Rostock, told AFP.
At the CJD school, different age groups are being taught separately, so that if a pupil tests positive, only one class will have to go into quarantine and the rest of the school can remain open.
Masks must be worn in the corridors, classrooms regularly ventilated and pupils are urged to wash their hands regularly and respect social distancing.
Not all went entirely to plan on Monday morning, however, as students excited to see their friends again after so long couldn’t resist a few hugs in the playground.
Rostock, Germany
Lunchbox, books, pencil case -- masks? Thousands of children in northern Germany became the first in Europe to begin a new school year on Monday after months of curtailed hours over the coronavirus pandemic.
The rest of the country was watching anxiously as 150,000 children returned to school in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany’s first state to restart full-time classes after the summer holidays, with infection numbers on the rise again.
Education ministers of Germany’s 16 states had agreed for schools to reopen full-time after the summer break, after offering only partial hours in the weeks when the lockdown was eased.
With children in Hamburg to also return to school later this week and Berlin to follow next week, a debate is now growing over whether full-time school is realistic as infection numbers rise above 500 per day again.
But officials warn that children cannot afford to miss more school. “The children need to be present in school because we have to prevent more lost time,” Steffen Kaestner, headteacher of the CJD Jugenddorf-Christophorus school in Rostock, told AFP.
At the CJD school, different age groups are being taught separately, so that if a pupil tests positive, only one class will have to go into quarantine and the rest of the school can remain open.
Masks must be worn in the corridors, classrooms regularly ventilated and pupils are urged to wash their hands regularly and respect social distancing.
Not all went entirely to plan on Monday morning, however, as students excited to see their friends again after so long couldn’t resist a few hugs in the playground.
