40% of primary schools sent classes home due to Covid

Since primary schools were allowed to reopen last month, over 40 percent of them have had to send at least one class home due to coronavirus infections, according to a poll of 800 primary schools by the general association of school leaders AVS, NOS reports.

AVS director Petra van Haren is not dissatisfied with those figures. "Actually, you can say that it is not too bad. More than 40 percent have sent one or more classes home. If you see that only 35 to 40 percent of schools had to close while the rest of education continues, then we should be happy with that," she said to the broadcaster.

The association found that many schools are having trouble enforcing the coronavirus rules. "Keeping your distance, especially in primary education, is not possible. 90 percent of schools indicate that. Working with small groups is actually not good either. And wearing face masks, the discipline to do that all day long, in the corridors and when entering and leaving the classes, that doesn't work very well either."

Teachers and parents adhere well to the rules, but children are more difficult, Van Haren said. "But we still see that the infection rates are very low. The fact that only about 3 percent of the 1.4 million children are in quarantine, means that things are going well in many places."