French-speaking teachers are worried about going back to school. Their union sets conditions for a resumption on May 11. If cantons and communes are unable to complete them, return to school should be postponed for one or two weeks.
“Many teachers are afraid of going back to class,” Samuel Rohrbach, president of the Union of Teachers of French-speaking Switzerland (SER), told Keystone-ATS on Tuesday. The latest announcements from the Confederation on young people and the Covid-19 are not reassuring and the recovery poses basic questions. “Some classes don’t have sinks, for example,” he says.
The SER has listed its conditions. To reopen, all schools must apply strict sanitary measures. The establishments must have the necessary resources to ensure the hygiene of the premises all day and no longer only after the end of the course.
Vulnerable people and their families, whether pupils or teachers, should be allowed to stay at home according to a clear notification procedure. The class sizes must be adjusted in order to respect the safety distances.
To avoid chaotic implementation, the Confederation is finally asked to impose rules to ensure coordination between the cantons. If the cantons and communes cannot meet these conditions, the SER requests to postpone the return to classes for one or two weeks.
Petition
A petition, launched by Vaudois parents, asks to give up the resumption on May 11, citing the lack of scientific validations on the impact of the virus. In just over a week, it has collected 18,000 signatures. She pleads for a voluntary resumption at the beginning of June and bets on the preparation of the return to school in August.
The SER, which relayed the petition’s press release on its site, prefers the solution of a general recovery before the holidays. “It is important to recreate the link between teachers and students,” says Samuel Rohrbach.
German-speaking union on the same line
On the other side of the Sarine, the German-speaking teachers share the French-speaking position. “As the coronavirus crisis is national, it is important to have binding guidelines on a Swiss scale,” said Dagmar Rösler, president of the LCH union.
It is already clear that if schools reopen on May 11, education will no longer be as it used to be. Hygiene and distance measures will have a big impact on the lessons and will take time before, during and after.
Discordant voice in eastern Switzerland
Eastern Switzerland would like to have a little more autonomy, according to Tages Anzeiger, who quotes the president of the eastern section of the Conference of Cantonal Directors of Education (CDIP), Benjamin Mühlemann.
“A recovery can only be successful if the appropriate medical recommendations are implemented and the teachers and parents are clearly informed,” said the State Councilor.
For him, it would not be relevant for the Federal Council to harden the concept of protection. If a minimum distance between children were to be prescribed, it would simply not be possible to teach in many places. And it will be even less possible to teach both in the classroom and online at a distance.
The Federal Council is expected to specify on Wednesday the conditions for the school break and the concept of protection to be respected. The CDIP will take a position at that time.
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