Schools deserve credit for staying open and soldiering on until the end of term

Schools across Northern Ireland will head into their final full week before Christmas.

Teachers, staff, parents and pupils are to be applauded as they soldier on towards the last days of the end term of what has been a dramatic and difficult year in education.

The temptation to cut short the year is very great. After all, isolation rules have led to large numbers of children having to stay at home. But it is well worth trying to stay the course for a number of reasons.

As the education minister Peter Weir has pointed out, society at large is no safer a place to be than schools.

If all pupils are sent home, it throws up serious problems. It poses fresh challenges with childcare for working parents, most of whom have had a torrid year. And every lost week of schooling inflicts further damage on pupils who have already been at home far too long this year. Stormont’s extra week of closure at Halloween was a mistake.

Mr Weir deserves particular credit for explaining the case for schools staying open rather than being politically cowardly and trying to present himself in a generous light by endorsing early closure. He is also right to press ahead with exams next year, as England is doing.

Mercifully, children are at very low risk of children. Pre teen children also seem only rarely to transmit it to adults.

So there are sound reasons why schools should be one of the very last places to shut due to Covid-19.

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