Taoiseach: If schools don't reopen, it will be damaging to children
The government is pressing ahead with plans to reopen schools next week, the Taoiseach has insisted.
Micheál Martin was speaking in Cork today after inspecting Covid-19 safety arrangements which have been implemented at the 250-pupil Nagle Community College in Mahon.
“I think if schools don’t reopen, we will be damaging children in terms of their intellectual development, their social development and in terms of their overall well-being and we have to balance that in terms of how we organize the school environment,” he said.
But he ruled out serial Covid-19 testing in schools and said isolation rooms will be provided in schools in the event of an incident.
And he defended his education minister Norma Foley, and the government’s roadmaps on reopening schools, which he said had been prepared in consultation with public health experts.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin arrives at Nagle Community College in #Cork to see how one school is preparing to reopen in a few days pic.twitter.com/qwwFeSzPEk
— Eoin English (@EoinBearla) August 20, 2020
Evolve and adapt will be the key watch-words in relation to the school year, he said, as he toured the building where hand sanitizers have been installed at each classroom door, perspex screens have been installed in some of the computer labs and a one-way walk system has been introduced around the building.
All staff and students will receive their personal PPE packs on arrival at a school which also has an autism unit with almost 20-students.
The work was done with the support of the Minor Capital Works grant which was made available to post-primary schools for the first time.
Mr Martin said the work was evidence of the “can-do attitude of teachers and education staff” in getting to grips with the current situation and saying we are going to make this happen and we are going to do everything possible we can to reopen our schools for the sake of our children who he said have lost a lot already because of Covid-19.
“I am very conscious that as Taoiseach of this country, we owe it to the children and the young people to enable them to have a proper quality learning experience and education experience because it’s one of the great differences that it can make to a person’s life,” he said.
“I think it’s very very important that we do everything we can to enable children to come back to school safely with all of the staff. This will evolve.
"They recognise here that this is about adapting and evolving and proper preparation. It’s also about taking personal responsibility.
“Evolve and adapt will be the key watch words in relation to the school year and I must tribute to the teachers, SNAs, the school staff and principals across the country for really working quietly and effectively over the last number of weeks to get their classrooms and schools ready.
“What’s important – I know as a former educationalist myself and as a parent - the most fundamental thing in life is the education experience for a child.
“We know the younger a child is, the more they learn, they learn far more early in life that they will for the rest of their lives.
“The mental health of a child will suffer, the overall development of a child will suffer. Some children may not return to school; there’s a hell of a lot at stake for the child.
"That’s why I’m so determined to try and get schools reopened, but we will evolve and adapt.
“We are not going to put the health and safety of children at risk, or even the staff of schools at risk.”
He said he hopes that the tightening of public health restrictions announced earlier this week will have an impact on the Covid figures and rates of community transmission over the coming three weeks in particular.
