Pupils in Northern Ireland have already lost too much schooling for an extended break

Since March of last year, school children across Northern Ireland have lost far, far too much classroom time.

When this pandemic comes to an end, any assessment of the political handling of it must pay close attention to education.

Children are dramatically less at risk of a bad response to coronavirus than older people. This is not to say that keeping schools fully open at all times would not have presented its own challenges, such as the congregating of parents at schools at the start and end of each day.

But damage to education is a very serious matter. Pupils might never recover if they fall far enough behind.

It is profoundly unfair for small cohorts of school children, such as specific exam years, to emerge from their schooling at a permanent disadvantage to the years that went just before or just after them.

It was very reassuring therefore to hear Stormont’s education minister Michelle McIlveen saying yesterday as she ruled out an extended Christmas break: “I am aware of the harm that has been caused to children and young people by school closures. It’s in all of our interests that we continue to provide access to classroom-based teaching for all pupils and I think really as a society, while we are very conscious of watching out for the health service, I think we need to be very mindful that we watch out for our schools.”

It has become increasingly clear that the least bad solution to the long-running Covid outbreak is a continuing push on vaccines until more than 90% of adults have had two jabs and a booster.

We cannot keep destroying specific sectors of the economy such as hospitality and harming key sectors of daily life such as schooling.

Rather than further lockdowns, our MLAs should focus on responses such as driving up vaccine rates in care and health workers, who have close contact with patients.

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