Hungarian education to be reopened “carefully, gradually”

Schools must be reopened “cautiously and gradually”, the state secretary in charge of public education said on Thursday, adding that a “smaller circle” of schools would open at a slower rate than originally planned.

Zoltán Maruzsa said kindergartens and primary schools for the first four grades will open on Monday, while children in grades 5-8 and secondary school students will go back to their classrooms on May 10.

• PM Orbán: outdoor catering to restart when 3.5 m vaccinated
• Hungarian government: Life to return to normal by early summer

Maruzsa told an online press briefing that teachers who registered for vaccination had received their shots. By last Sunday, 200,000 teachers and other schools staff received at least their first shots, he added.

No infection hotspots have formed around creches which have been open since March 8, he said.

Concerning the reopening of kindergartens and primary schools for the younger children, Maruzsa said that more and more parents were returning to their jobs as the economy was restarting, and the number of children taken to school or kindergarten to be supervised during the day was increasing. On Wednesday, he said, 11 percent of children turned up at kindergartens.

“Children are less susceptible to the virus,” he said, adding that the number of infections in the lower grades was “half to a third” of that in higher grades.

When schools reopen, measures such as temperature checks, disinfection and physical distancing will again be applied, he said. As for physical distancing, Maruzsa said that classes could not be halved because “that would require twice as many teachers”. Teachers in the classroom education cannot be expected to hold online classes simultaneously, he said.

Parents reluctant to send their children back to the kindergarten or school can apply for permission to headmasters and headmistresses, though students who skip more than 250 classes in a school year could be required to take an exam.

The heads of the National Teachers’ Corps and trade union PSZ welcomed the government’s decision on reopening schools, Maruzsa insisted.

Source: MTI