Almost a month before the start of the school year, scheduled for September 2, the Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, announced on Wednesday July 28 a new health protocol in schools. “The health pass is not intended to exist in schools, recalled the minister, guest of the Matinale de France Info. But there will be a health protocol broken down into four scenarios depending on the circulation of the virus. ”
In the primary, “The classes will be closed from the first case of Covid”, as was the case during the past school year. In secondary, college and high school, “Only unvaccinated students will be evicted and will have to follow distance education”, Mr. Blanquer detailed, the others being able to continue in class. “The unvaccinated stays at home, the vaccinated stays in class”, he added.
To justify these new measures, the minister defended a logic of “Lesser evil” : “These measures are inspired by the goal of having as many children as possible in school. ” “Our compass is to keep the whole school system open, it has been and will remain so for the next few months”, he added. “I’m sure there will be less disruption this year, especially if the students are vaccinated. “
To move towards a maximum vaccination rate in secondary education, “6,000 to 7,000 vaccination centers” will be deployed from the start of the school year “In or next to” schools, he also announced. The Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, assured on July 12 that vaccination campaigns for middle school, high school and college students would be launched “In schools from the start of the school year”, while vaccination has been open to all children 12 years of age and over since mid-June.
Teachers: the vaccination obligation “not essential”
The health protocol for 2021-2022 was published on Wednesday morning on the national education website and includes four scenarios based on four degrees of virus circulation. “In the lightest scenario, you no longer have a mask in primary school, but I fear that it will not be this scenario at the start of the school year”, advanced the Minister of Education.
# COVID19 | The health protocol specifying the operating framework for schools, colleges and high schools for 2021-202 … https://t.co/t48FjuzFiZ
– education_gouv (@ Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports)
Jean-Michel Blanquer has again refused the idea of imposing a health pass to enter school, and it will not apply to university either, said the minister, who is not also not in favor of compulsory vaccination for teachers, as it is for certain professions: “At this stage, it doesn’t seem essential to us. The percentage of teachers getting vaccinated is very important, I think it has exceeded 80% “, he stressed.
“ This figure must go as far as possible towards 100% so that we do not have to go towards the vaccination obligation, it is the last resort. If the percentage is too low, of vaccinated teachers, we will have to go towards that ” , he warned, however.