federal aid
Family Minister wants to turn off thousands of specialists for day care centers and schools
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The number of infections reaches new highs almost every day, and the incidences are currently highest in young age groups. In order to ensure the care and education of children and young people, Family Minister Anne Spiegel (Greens) now wants to borrow federal staff.
The current incidences in young age groups are alarmingly high. In the zero to four year olds, the incidence is 460.98. In the age group between five and nine it is 1095.69, in the ten to 14 year olds the incidence is 1137.74 and in the 15 to 19 year olds it is 1183.32, according to the Robert Koch Institute (as of April 20, 2019). January 2022).
Omikron: The high incidences lead to more and more school and daycare failures
The high incidences lead to many failures in schools and daycare centers, quite a few facilities had to close completely because the educators and teachers are also infected or in quarantine. In order to ensure regular operations, Federal Minister for Family Affairs Anne Spiegel has offered help from the federal government to facilities with a particularly tense staffing situation.
The almost 8,000 pedagogical specialists from the federal programs “Language Daycare Centers” and “Respect Coaches” could “help in the care of the children for six weeks,” said the Green politician to the newspapers of the Funke media group. “In this way we give the day care centers and schools more flexibility and help to bridge staff shortages,” says Spiegel. It is important that schools and daycare centers remain open, as the lockdowns of recent years have shown.
Schools and day-care centers: Anne Spiegel offers help from thousands of federal specialists
The “Language Kitas” and “Respect Coaches” programs are funded by the federal government. The day-care center program focuses on language education, the “Respect Coaches” are intended to support schools in the fight against extremism, hatred and racism.
In view of the rapidly increasing spread of the omicron variant, the federal and state governments want to discuss the corona protection measures again on Monday from 2 p.m. At the top of the agenda is the discussion about prioritizing the PCR tests due to the limited laboratory capacities.
Federal Minister for Family Affairs calls for prioritization of PCR tests in schools and daycare centers
According to the draft resolution, the PCR tests should continue to be available for staff, “particularly in hospitals, in practices, in nursing, integration aid facilities and for people at risk of serious illnesses,” according to the “Spiegel”. Before the meeting, Anne Spiegel had now demanded in the Funke newspapers that educators and children in primary school and daycare should also have priority access to PCR tests.
“This is the only way we can prevent healthy children from being kept away from daycare or school for an unnecessarily long time,” said the Federal Minister for Family Affairs. This also applies to the so-called lollipop pool tests. According to Anne Spiegel, they contribute to the fact that fewer PCR tests are required, because in the pool tests several children can be tested at the same time using just one PCR method.
Sources used: “spiegel.de”, “rki.de”
This article originally appeared on ELTERN.de.