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Teaching has proven to be in different phases of the pandemic a disciplined and safe environment. There would be no point in delaying now back to the classrooms while other routes of contagion remain open in sectors such as leisure, sports or restaurants, and mass parties and concerts are allowed. It is therefore convincing the decision of the Ministers of Health, Education and Universities and the regional councilors to maintain the return to the classrooms on the scheduled dates, despite the unbridled expansion of the omicron variant, provided that the necessary resources are guaranteed for strict compliance with the protection measures in force.
The authorities have again had to make a difficult decision. In this case, the question to ponder was whether the benefit of delaying the return to the classroom, in terms of reducing infections, outweighed the costs that the measure would imply. Children are transmitters, but in case of contagion they do not suffer serious forms of disease, so that the direct benefit in their case is less than in other age groups. On the other hand, suspending face-to-face classes has direct consequences on the quality of education, mental health and family conciliation.
As could be seen during confinement, distance education compromises pedagogical quality. Even if the digital gap has decreased thanks to the provision of computers to schoolchildren who did not have them, remote teaching affects equity and exacerbates inequalities to the extent that not all students have a favorable environment at home to follow this type of teaching. On the other hand, the protection measures have been effective so far: in the last school week before the holidays, in the middle of the sixth wave, the students of just over 5,000 nursery and primary classrooms had to quarantine, but this alteration it barely affected 1.3% of the total of these, which, even if this percentage grows in January, can be considered a lesser evil. The accumulated experience allows us to conclude that, in the event of a negative evolution of the pandemic, schools should be the last to close.
However, it is foreseeable that the brutal expansion of the omicron variant, whose peak is expected in mid-January, cause more infections and a high number of sick leave among teaching staff. That is why it is important to take measures to guarantee the rapid replacement of absentees and to be able to unfold classes where necessary. But the most effective measure will certainly speed up the vaccination of children from 5 to 11 years. Almost a third of the 3.3 million schoolchildren of that age have received a first dose, but it is vital for the smooth running of the school year that all students, from kindergarten to university, can have the complete schedule as soon as possible.
It is regrettable that after having achieved a dynamic of agreements that has made it possible to adopt the decision unanimously, despite the previous reluctance of Madrid and Murcia, the governments of the first of these two communities and Andalusia have returned to the dynamics of institutional disloyalty to the go ahead and modify the quarantine rules in schools without waiting for joint deliberation. Building trust has to be one of the political priorities and decisions taken in concert reinforce it.
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