Stormont should prioritise vaccination of teachers and get children back to school

As we reported on Tuesday, one of these options is delaying a return of classroom education until after Easter. We have sympathy with Mr Weir. He was not inclined to close schools at all after the Christmas holidays, but after the Westminster government completed its U-turn on a pledge to keep England’s schools open, the DUP minister was left with little choice but to confirm closures here amidst a clamour led by the teaching unions and some MLAs.

Boris Johnson yesterday confirmed that English schools won’t return before March 8, with talk of extending closures beyond Easter refusing to go away. Such a move would be unacceptable in respect of the education and well-being of our children and pile more pressure on beleaguered working parents who juggle their jobs with home-schooling.

Remote learning was a disaster for many children when it was introduced in spring 2020. There was no consistency in terms of the quality of online teaching across our schools, with the levels varying even within individual schools.

There are reports that teachers in secondary schools have made a better fist of remote learning over the last month, but it is still no substitute for the real thing, no substitute for children not mixing with their peers every day. Children are also being hampered by poor home broadband, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds and lower-income families.

Stormont has a route out of this crisis. With the Covid-19 vaccine set to rolled out to the over-65s, the Executive should prioritise the vaccination of teachers and get schools back by March.

Children, who face a very low risk from coronavirus, have virtually been forgotten about. The longer they are absent from school the greater the damage to their future lives.