After discussions across Germany about an earlier start of the Christmas holidays at schools, the first federal state has now decided to take this step. Will more follow?
When the new lockdown measures were announced at the end of October, the federal government made it abundantly clear that it absolutely wanted to avoid nationwide school closings to contain the pandemic. Nothing has changed about this resolution. But in view of the increasing numbers of infections among pupils and teachers, more than 3,000 schools have now had to shut down regular operations, reports include newspapers from the Funke media group.
North Rhine-Westphalia decides to extend the Christmas holidays
North Rhine-Westphalia is currently particularly affected, where according to media reports, by order of the health authorities, pupils at more than 550 schools are in quarantine and are being taught digitally. And it is now North Rhine-Westphalia that was the first federal state to decide to extend the Christmas holidays because of the pandemic.
In order to enable the families to have a "largely carefree Christmas", the decision was made to give the schoolchildren the day off on December 21st and 22nd, the NRW School Minister Yvonne Gebauer (FDP) told the WDR. How the failure can be technically compensated – especially for those who will do their degrees in the coming year – is now important to discuss, said the minister in the WDR5 "Morgenecho". Emergency care for children whose parents work in systemically important professions is now also being taken care of as quickly as possible.
Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) was basically open to extended Christmas holidays in view of the corona pandemic and told RTL that this measure would be discussed in the coming meetings, which the NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) himself was the first to publicly suggest would have. It remains to be seen whether there will be a nationwide agreement on the Christmas holidays or whether other states will follow the example of North Rhine-Westphalia on their own. It is to be feared, however, that there could be further isolated school closings before the Christmas holidays: Today, Thursday, the Robert Koch Institute announced 21,866 new corona cases. A deceleration of the infection process is currently not in sight.
Sources used: WDR, RTL, RKI, Aachener Zeitung, picture