The government has appeared to row back from its position on reopening primary schools in England, insisting June 1 is not a fixed date and that ministers need to listen to the concerns of councils and teachers.
The Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland, struck a conciliatory note during a series of media interviews in response to a growing backlash against the government’s policy of lifting the coronavirus lockdown on schools in less than a fortnight.
The government has said it wants children in nursery, reception, year 1 and year 6 to begin a phased return to schools from June 1 with other years following soon after, so primary children are in school for a month before the summer holidays, as long as the government’s five tests for easing lockdown have been met.
In recent days, however, a growing number of councils across the country have said they will not meet the government’s deadline and teachers’ unions remain defiant, expressing continuing dissatisfaction with government reassurances about safety.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the minister stressed the government was in listening mode: “We’ve got to listen to what we are being told and also to engage and to persuade and to make sure the necessary arrangements are in place. The government always said that we hoped that June 1 would be the date. It was conditional.”
In another interview with BBC Breakfast, Buckland acknowledged teachers’ safety concerns.“I don’t think any of us want to put either children or our dedicated teaching staff in any danger at all, and the question of being safe is clearly paramount. So we’re all working towards June 1 and planning for that return, but I accept the point that there may well be issues from employers that need to be addressed which might not mean we’ll see a uniform approach on June 1.”
He added: “It really depends on the views of employers. A lot of councils are direct employers of teaching staff, their views are clearly very important. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that suddenly on June 1 everything will be uniform, I don’t know, it’s my hope.
“But these conversations need to continue and we need to listen very carefully to the concerns of employers and staff.”
As the number of deaths in care homes reaches 11,600, the justice secretary also addressed questions about coronavirus testing, saying the NHS had been chosen as the focus instead of care homes and that was “right and essential” so as not to overwhelm hospitals.
He told Sky News: “I think we rightly emphasised the importance of making sure our NHS services, our hospitals, were places that would continue to admit patients and wouldn’t be incubators of the disease.”
from Gulf Times https://ift.tt/3e6tEOE
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