{"id":4161,"date":"2020-11-12T16:46:56","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T15:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/?post_type=article&p=4161"},"modified":"2020-11-12T16:48:23","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T15:48:23","slug":"xahar-mill-ftuh-tal-iskejjel-it-thassib-fuq-il-covid-19-ghadu-hemm","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/article\/xahar-mill-ftuh-tal-iskejjel-it-thassib-fuq-il-covid-19-ghadu-hemm\/","title":{"rendered":"One month from the reopening of schools: Covid-19 still of great concern for teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It\u2019s been more than a month since the reopening of schools\u00a0following last March\u2019s abrupt closure due to the Covid-19 outbreak,\u00a0 but teachers\u00a0are\u00a0concerned more than ever despite the assurances given on the precautionary measures\u00a0in place – \u00a0primarily the \u2018bubble\u2019\u00a0 concept which is meant to keep children and teachers isolated in separate groups as much as possible.
\u201cAs a peripatetic teacher who must replace educators who for some reason are absent,\u00a0this concept failed.\u00a0 I burst bubbles every day as I constantly change groups!\u00a0Furthermore,\u00a0the children find it hard to maintain social distance\u00a0all time,\u201d a government primary school teacher told\u00a0Voice of-the Workers\u00a0Weekly.
Meanwhile, the Union of Professional Educators received complaints about lack of cleanliness\u00a0which in some cases resulted in\u00a0teachers incurring extra costs to\u00a0buy sanitizers, masks and wipes which are required to disinfect their desk after each lesson.
\u201cI am spending around \u20ac20 a week.\u00a0This rubs even more salt on the wound when considering the teachers\u2019 salary,\u201d\u00a0a government secondary school teacher remarked.
The use of masks\u00a0changed the learning experience drastically.\u00a0While it is necessary to\u00a0reduce\u00a0risk, it\u00a0is affecting communication in class.\u00a0It is more difficult projecting one\u2019s voice with a mask especially\u00a0when dealing with foreign students, who also rely\u00a0on lip reading to understand.\u00a0From this perspective online teaching offers an advantage.
As expected, schools started registering positive cases from the\u00a0very beginning.\u00a0In this respect one of the teachers\u2019 biggest concern is the way in which\u00a0the news is being communicated by the schools themselves.
\u201cNot all teachers are being notified, but only those who were in the bubble. In some cases, the news was not broken in the same day but at a later stage.\u00a0Sometimes it is thanks to the media that we learnt about positive members of staff or students or from the updates given\u00a0by the UPE\u201d a secondary school teacher said.
She\u00a0also expressed concern\u00a0that at times crucial protocols such as the use of masks all the time and social distancing were not being constantly maintained.\u00a0Questions were also raised on\u00a0a practice which is being adopted in certain quarters whereby\u00a0teachers are only being alerted of a positive case if they spent at least two hours with the infected person. If this is being applied in secondary schools no teacher will be ever notified as no student will spend two hours in the\u00a0presence of the same educator, teachers pointed out.
Questions were also raised on the decision to come back to school before the end of the 14-day quarantine period, following a negative test. Could it be the case that the virus was not detected as it was still\u00a0in the\u00a0incubation period?
Meanwhile, the teachers\u2019 load of work has continued to increase as they are having to adapt lessons\u00a0for online platforms as well.
In this context, some teachers floated the idea of seriously considering the closure of schools\u00a0at the height of the influenza season.
\u201cFor us this would mean a lot of work, but ultimately\u00a0it would be the best option to reduce\u00a0the health\u00a0hazard\u00a0of educators who are front\u00a0liners as well,\u201d\u00a0a\u00a0primary school teacher\u00a0said.
Meanwhile, Government announced plans for virtual classes for students who are not attending school as they are medically vulnerable.\u00a0While this is a positive step, the UPE is insisting\u00a0that this service should also be extended to students who in the present circumstances are not feeling comfortable attending\u00a0school.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4162,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"spay_email":""},"issuem_issue":[191],"issuem_issue_categories":[9],"issuem_issue_tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.8.8","language":"en","enabled_languages":["mt","en"],"languages":{"mt":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/4161"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/4161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4165,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/4161\/revisions\/4165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue?post=4161"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_categories?post=4161"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_tags?post=4161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}