COVID: Was it premature to open German schools?

This week some students were allowed back to school. Most of them were happy to go. But critics feel the resumption of classes is too risky — and say teachers should have been vaccinated first.

One-way arrows on the floors of the corridors, calls over the intercom to maintain distance, smaller class groups: That's the new normal in the corona pandemic for students of the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium in the western German city of Bonn. Those back at school belong to the classes doing state exams this year. They've been back at school for real since Monday, preparing for their graduation or intermediate exams.

"We have made quite a few preparations," school principal Frank Langner told DW. Each year has been split up into two groups called cohorts, each with 70 to 75 students. The individual courses have also been spread over two classrooms. There are never more than 15 students in one room. "That way, we can ensure that any infections that happen are limited to one cohort. So we have adapted in-school lessons." Langer said that thanks to the smaller class sizes, distancing and masks, the risk of infection during class was quite low anyway.

Schools throughout Germany are welcoming students back to in-person classes with measures like these since Monday. To start with, only primary schools and classes due to take state exams are reopening. In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, that means about a third of all 2.5 million school students are returning.

Patchwork of regulations

But there are differences from federal state to federal state. Education is a matter for the states, not the federal government. That leads to a range of different responses to the coronavirus crisis.

In Saarland, for example, classes due to sit exams are all returning together, while other states, such as Baden-Württemberg, are rotating them in smaller groups. It's a similar story with other measures. Some states insist that masks are worn in class, others don't. Some states are planning regular testing for teachers and students, others aren't.

"We must distinguish between what makes sense locally and what needs to be applied statewide," says school principal Langner. In Bonn, some classes are attending school on alternating days. Others, such as his own, are dividing classes up and assigning them different rooms. That means even siblings can experience different approaches to dealing with the Corona crisis. "There should be a certain amount of uniformity," is Langner's recommendation.

Defenseless Teachers

While schools take different approaches to the reopening, there are also differences over whether it should be happening at all. Infection numbers are still not stable and the British variant is spreading in some parts of Germany. Many people fear that Germany is on the threshold of a third wave of infections.National politicians such as German education minister Anja Karliczek are in favor of reopening. "Children, especially the smaller ones, need each other", said Karliczek.

One big area of concern is the safety of teachers. In some regions, such as the state of Thuringia, schools are reopening despite a seven-day incidence of 100 new infections per 100,000 members of the population. That means the risk of infection hangs over every hour at the school.

This is why the states and the federal government have agreed to move primary school teachers and nursery school and primary school employees into a higher priority group for vaccinations. States have pledged to offer vaccinations to them as soon as enough doses become available.

Putting the cart before the horse

Calls for teachers and other school workers to be given a higher priority for vaccination have been growing louder for weeks. Until now, they could not expect to be inoculated before early summer – and the school year would practically be over by then. According to the latest plan, teachers should be vaccinated in springtime. The social affairs minister of Lower Saxony, Carola Reimann, said her state had been "calling for this measure for some time" at meetings with the federal government.