Romanian students are going back to classrooms

About 2.4 million students from Romania are going back to school as of February 8th, when the second semester is to begin

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Daniela Budu, 03.02.2021, 14:00

Get children ready for school – is the
message Romanian president Klaus Iohannis on Tuesday conveyed to parents. However,
the president has pointed out that Romania still hasn’t got rid of the pandemic
although the infection rate diminished in the last weeks. According to him, citizens
must still comply with prevention rules, wear masks and keep social distancing.
Furthermore, the resumption of face-to-face school will be done in accordance
with the infection rate in every region and strict measures are in place for
every school so that students and teachers may come back to school in good
conditions.

Klaus
Iohannis:
Kindergartens and 1-4th graders
will have face-to-face classes almost everywhere, except for the regions in
quarantine. All children are allowed to go to schools in the regions with a
lower infection rate. Where some cases have been reported, only kindergartens, 8th
and 12th graders are returning to schools and where the infection
rate is higher only kindergartens and 1-4th graders are allowed to come
back to school, the rest are taking online courses.

At present over three quarters of the Romanian
counties have a Covid-19 infection rate under 1.5 cases per thousand. Bucharest
has an infection rate of 3 per one thousand, which means that kindergartens are
open as well as schools for students in the 1-4th grade and for high-schoolers
in their last year. According to Prime Minister Florin Citu, the reopening of
schools is a step towards normalcy. The Romanian official has given assurances
that such a move will be made by means of a well-established plan of measures
drawn up by the Ministry of Education jointly with the Health Ministry for the
protection of students and the personnel in the country’s education system. In
turn, education Minister Sorin Campeanu said that students are allowed to sit
in desks and the plastic protection shields used by some schools in autumn will
be scrapped. However, the official considers face-covering in schools as essential.

Opposition PSD leader Marcel Ciolacu says the
president’s announcement on the resumption of schools was long-awaited, but he
criticized the timing and the shortage of funds caused by the passing of a new
draft budget. ‘Authorities must buy medical equipment wherever needed, because
otherwise we are opening schools only to close them down again later’, the PSD
leader went on to say. The Social-Democrats have called on the Prime Minister
to go to the Chamber of Deputies for talks over the state budget and the
measures to freeze salaries in state-owned institutions. The Social-Democrats
have also invited Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu for talks.

(bill)