Whole schools may not be shut because of an outbreak of COVID-19, under the government’s €375 million plan to re-open the education system.
If there’s an outbreak in a school then an assessment will be done on how many children will need to self isolate having come into contact with that person.
Millions of euro have been allocated to allow schools to adapt classrooms to allow for social distancing where required.
Education Minister Norma Foley says public health teams will assess things whenever a case of COVID is identified in schools. “That may well envisage for example, that the class would be the class that would be asked to go into self isolation, it’s very clear that depending on how it happened and in what context it happened that the situation can be managed, to best meet the health and safety of all concerned”.
Meanwhile a local principal in Carlow doesn’t believe the additional 1000 teacher will be enough.
Simon Lewis, who’s the principal of the Educate Together school in Carlow, says more staff are needed still, “The trouble is we don’t know where they are going to go, we have 4,000 schools, a 1,000 teachers, that’s one for every four schools, it’s not enough really”.
