A revised health and hygiene plan for schools was introduced by the Minister of Education in Friday morning's press conference.
Schools are set to reopen after the holidays on 22 February, but with a stricter sanitary plan, which will include mandatory masks for primary students from the second cycle upwards. The same will apply to wraparound care (Maisons Relais). Certain mask types will not be made mandatory.
There will also be more testing, with everyone who was in quarantine requiring a test to return to school. Staff and pupils will be invited more frequently to participate in the Large-Scale Testing programme. The Ministry is also working to source more rapid antigen tests, to be rolled out from March onwards, so they can react faster to potential outbreaks.
If infections were to flare up again in the Maisons Relais, these could be forced to close. Parents would be able to request family leave in this case.
Distance learning could return for all students after the Easter break, but this will depend on the situation. Ministries will focus on reducing the mixing of children in activities and wraparound care outside of school hours.
Pupils in secondary school will return to alternate A/B week schooling, with the exception of those in their first year of secondary.
Exam schedules and study material for final years will be adapted, with written exams reduced in all subjects, and oral exams in those subjects that require a lot of preparation. This should amount to a reduction of roughly 15% overall. Some chapters or topics will be left out, or if that is not possible, alternative questions could be set. The deadlines to finalise questionnaires will be adjusted accordingly.
Final year students will still have face-to-face learning.
Our live stream of the press conference with the Minister of Education Claude Meisch is now over, but you can still read through the remaining ticker translations here.
