After some corona measures in social life were lifted again, the obligation to wear masks during lessons should now also be lifted in all school levels: Daniela Schwabegger from the State Association of Parents’ Associations of Public Compulsory Schools spoke out in a broadcast yesterday.
A clear rejection comes from Joris Gruber, President of the State Association of Parents’ Associations at secondary and middle schools in Upper Austria. “As long as the mask protects us from school closures, it is a necessary tool,” he says.
Schwabegger, on the other hand, thinks it is incomprehensible that children should have to wear a mask at school while they don’t need one in the restaurant. The lifting of the mask requirement during physical education classes should be seen as a “correction of an incomprehensible procedure”, but not as a “concession”. In addition, there should again be “unrestricted teaching in all subjects” and additional teaching offers, said Schwabegger.
For Joris Gruber, on the other hand, these demands of the national association of parents’ associations of public compulsory schools are “out of place”, as he said yesterday when asked by OÖN. “We have much bigger problems, such as the learning material that has been left behind or the question of how the Matura should develop in the future.”
Many of those affected are certainly “very unhappy if the masks in high schools have to be worn for a week or two longer,” he said, but the main thing is that there are no large-scale sick leave and school closures.
Gruber also considers a discussion about whether the obligation to wear masks to be abolished or not to be negligible: “There are experts who have to decide on this. We all wish that the obligation to wear masks would be lifted.” However, this should not happen “at the expense of school closures”.
Source: Nachrichten
