Schools Should Not Reopen During The COVID-19 Pandemic
Schooling learning has been put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic with the developed countries preferring to take online learning while children from third world country stay at home without learning. School closure during the pandemic is a preventative measure taken to stop the spread of the virus to the greater population and protecting the children from the deadly disease. It has led to the closure of all learning institutions, crippling the education system across the world with some benefiting from online learning while others have no opportunity to learn (Burgess, & Sievertsen, 2020). Opening the school during the pandemic increases the risk of spreading the virus, putting the lives of the larger young generation at risk of catching and spreading the virus even to the community. For example, in places like Spain and Israel where they had tried to allow some kids to return to school in June and July, there was a spike in COVID-19 cases indicating that there is a higher percentage of spreading the virus in school (Stein-Zamir et al., 2020). Schools should not be reopened during the pandemic because the governments have a greater responsibility to protect the lives of their citizens during the pandemic; otherwise, they will have no one to educate. However, some are arguing that children have the right to be educated, and thus schools should be reopened with the government being to provide the safety to the learners and the teachers to avoid catching COVID-19. During the pandemic, the government have to engage in trade-offs and opportunity cost by choosing health over education for the children and the larger population in general. However, by choosing to keep the learners’ healthy schools are going to forego education and students will be forced to go without classroom education for an unforeseen future which can be more than a year or two. During the pandemic, all governments should prioritize safety over education, and all schools should remain closed until it is safe for the kids to attend school.
According to Spinelli and Pellino (2020), COVID-19 diseases is a respiratory illness that began in China in late 2019. The disease is known to spread through respiratory droplets that are released when people breathe or open their mouth to talk, laugh, cough and so forth. The disease is highly contagious with the virus easily passing to anyone who comes into contact with an infected individual. As a country, China was unable to contain the virus, and thus it spread quickly to other countries across the world. As a new disease, it poses a challenge to everybody since there was no medication or vaccination to stop its spread. The virus has proved deadly because it can attack anyone, and although there is a higher chance of survival, the risk of dying from the virus is also high. As a result of the spread nature and its effects, the government have been forced to take stringent measures to curb the spread of the virus to the larger population. One of the best measures taken to prevent the spread of the virus is to ensure physical distance which can be achieved through discouraging mass meetings which require the closure of public places such as schools, worship centres, shopping place, some transport sectors, entertainment/recreational sectors. According to Burgess and Sievertsen (2020), learning institutions were among the first places to be closed in many countries as there is a higher risk of quickly spreading the virus even when hygiene protocols are laid out.
Stein-Zamir and colleagues (2020), say that there is sufficient data support that ensuring physical distance reduces the chance of contracting and spreading the coronavirus in learning environments. Schools should, therefore remain closed until there is a way to stop the spread of the virus. Although hygiene guidelines and protocols exist that are helping people prevent contracting the virus, kids are known to forget easily. These measures cannot be easily followed in school. Thus, it increases the chance of spreading the virus to other parties.
The government are responsible for educating and health of its population. However, it is practically impossible to educate a sick population or in other cases a dead person. Most governments continue to take the heat caused by people who are complaining about school closure. The COVID-19 data indicate that failure to follow the set health guidelines could lead to the spread of the pandemic, and it would have detrimental effects such as deaths. Countries such as the U.S, Italy, Spain have had an experience with the COVID-19 disease when the laid health protocols are not followed. Governments should ensure that schools remain closed to ensure that students stay and home and that they are safe.
There is a higher economic, social and environmental cost to be incurred in treating the virus than to retaining the children at school. Opening the schools during the COVID-19 pandemic increases the risk of infection (Edmunds, 2020). The cost of containing the pandemic is much higher than that of education the student. Thus, to ensure there are minimal social, economic and environmental costs of containing and treating the pandemic, schools should remain closed. The learning process for kids can be rushed later after the pandemic has been dealt with.
Edmunds (2020) says empirical clinical evidence indicates that children have mild COVID-19 conditions, but these children can transmit the virus to other people. However, the pandemic has proved that it is more of a community disease than an individual illness. Mild illness is only for healthy children, but those with underlying conditions are likely to seriously suffer from the disease, and some may even succumb to the diseases. Children with mild conditions are also likely to spread the disease to other children, teachers and family members (Stein-Zamir et al., 2020). Therefore, to ensure the safety of the children and the community at large, learning institutions should remain closed until the virus can be contained.
Counter-argument/Cons
The right to education for kids across the globe has been violated during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 60% of the world’s student population has its education disrupted primarily because of school closure (UNESCO 2020). there is a call among many parents and activist to find the safest way to reopen the schools across the globe. The outcry is that as much as the government has a responsibility for ensuring the safety of the kids, so does the duty to ensure students continue learning. First world country students are actively engaged in online learning which also does not meet all the learning necessities (Burgess & Sievertsen, 2020). There is a push by various parties in these countries to open the schools. In the U.S, for example, different groups are pushing for the reopening of the schools to allow learners to return to normal learning. In other countries, kids are not learning at all and have been forced to remain at home to ensure that the physical distance among the school-goers (UNESCO 2020). Thus, there is a likelihood that kids from low income earning family will be adversely affected than those from high-income backgrounds.
According to Edmunds (2020), schools should be reopened to ensure that the social, psychological and educational development, as well as economic productivity of the parent, is not damaged. The disruption is likely to negatively impact the social and psychological conditions for most learners as they cannot physically interact with others and also are traumatized because they do not know when it will be safe again to return to school (Lee, 2020). There will be a setback in the educational development of most learners, especially those who do not have resources to learn at home or review what they have been learning. By opening schools, it will allow the parent to return to active income and productivity levels because there will be no childcare responsibilities at home (Edmunds, 2020).
Although each kid is entitled to an education, during a pandemic, the government has a greater responsibility of keeping the population safe, and thus schools should remain closed until there is a safe way to return to school. Schools pose as a good environment for the environment to quickly spread from one child to another and from the child to the family members. Children may not understand what is at stake during a pandemic, and thus they are more likely not to follow the set health guidelines. It poses a greater challenge to the government in reopening schools. Although kids have the right to education, the government has a bigger responsibility for ensuring a safe learning environment. The only way to ensure a safe learning environment at the moment is by maintaining the schools closed until there is a standard and safe way of reopening.
References
Burgess, S., & Sievertsen, H. H. (2020). Schools, skills, and learning: The impact of COVID-19 on education. VoxEu. org, 1.
Edmunds, W. J. (2020). Finding a path to reopen schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.
Lee, J. (2020). Mental health effects of school closures during COVID-19. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 4(6), 421.
Levinson, M., Cevik, M., & Lipsitch, M. (2020). Reopening Primary Schools during the Pandemic.
Spinelli, A., & Pellino, G. (2020). COVID‐19 pandemic: perspectives on an unfolding crisis. The British journal of surgery.
Stein-Zamir, C., Abramson, N., Shoob, H., Libal, E., Bitan, M., Cardash, T., … & Miskin, I. (2020). A large COVID-19 outbreak in a high school 10 days after schools’ reopening, Israel, May 2020. Eurosurveillance, 25(29), 2001352.
UNESCO. (2020). Education: From disruption to recovery.