There is no discussion about closing schools, the Minister of Education Niki Kerameos reassured, speaking to SKAI. “Obviously when there are more cases in society there will be in schools, these are communicating vessels. “Schools are monitoring the pandemic, they are not leading it,” he said, recalling a relevant statement by Ms. Papaevangelou.
He said that “we have noticed that we have more cases in schools with lower vaccination coverage of parents”. The higher the vaccination coverage of the parents, the lower the cases in the school, explained Niki Kerameos.
In fact, as the minister pointed out, at the moment in more than 80,000 departments in the country we have eight departments closed, if we had a mass dispersion we would have thousands of departments closed. “We do not have dispersion, because teachers, students, all parents, observe and we have a lot of tests. If there is a case in the classroom, the close contacts do 7 tests a week every day, tests and rapid and self tests and we also identify asymptomatic carriers. “When schools started in September, 29% of daily cases were children. Now the number has dropped to 22%.”
“In the last few days there has been a pleasant increase in vaccinations and we see it in high school children (15-17) who are vaccinated at 42% -with a dose- and at 26% in high school (12-14). We clearly want more vaccinations, I call on parents to vaccinate their children for the protection of the children themselves “.
In a very large percentage of education, 80% of confirmed cases come from self-tests. The whole student population takes tests, it is the only population group that generally takes tests except for the vaccinated ones, noted Mrs. Kerameos.
According to the minister, over 83% of secondary school teachers have been vaccinated, over 93% of university teachers and over 81% students, two installments, while in the Ministry of Education almost 90% of the administrative staff are vaccinated.
“Isolated incidents”
“There are isolated cases of families that keep their children at home and regardless of the coronavirus, there have always been isolated cases of parents who for some reason did not want their children to go to school,” the minister explained.
“In our country, education is compulsory until high school … In such cases (where children do not go to school) there is a procedure that is followed, the principal in the first stage calls the parents and discusses the issue and if the prolonged absence continues the prosecutor’s office is dealt with as it was done in Serres with a social investigation, with ranks of social workers going home and an investigation is carried out for the custody of the child. The Ministry of Education is making a first attempt with the parent for any reason, not only because of the coronavirus “, clarified Niki Kerameos.
Responding to the shock complaint to SKAI, the director of an elementary school in Rhodes for a student who has to appear for two years due to a negative father, the minister commented that the provisions are clear, education in our country is mandatory and that is why the prosecution is being addressed.
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