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SCOTLAND’S Education Secretary John Swinney insisted today that schools remain safe for staff and pupils, despite warnings from teaching unions.
Deputy First Minister Mr Swinney said he wants to stick to schools returning to face-to-face learning on January 18 after an extended Christmas break and a week of remote learning from January 11.
Mr Swinney said that ministers were taking “a strategic approach in the country to try to minimise movement so we maximise our chances of avoiding further spread of the virus.”
But unions say it is difficult to square the Education Secretary’s statement with his decision to keep schools open this week.
NASUWT Scotland official Jane Peckham said: “The minister risks making a perilous situation on Covid transmission worse by forcing schools to remain open, a decision which is causing wholly avoidable anxiety and fear.”
This concern is shared by others. EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan and SSTA leader Seamus Searson have said that closing schools this week would have been the right decision.
