Romanian authorities have issued the first norms for starting school, to keep up with the health and safety rules prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, among the new requirements, pupils will enter schools in steps at specific time slots, to prevent overcrowding, and will also follow predefined pathways with keeping an 1-metre distancing.
Both students and teachers are compelled to wear protective face masks inside schools, starting from the primary school. Kids in kindergartens are excepted.
Teachers are encouraged to use their personal notebooks, instead of school registers, to write pupils’ grades and absences. Another option would be the digital school register, as Education minister Monica Anisie said.
“The school register can be filled up after the teacher end his/her activity, after those 2-3 classes a day (…) The school might also use a digital school register”, the minister explained.
There will be two breaks per day so that children can go to the toilet without getting crowded. The timetable will include only 2-3 intensive teaching subjects in secondary school and high school, followed by other 2-3 subjects.
Online classes will be streamed live during the physical ones.
Parents will be able to choose if they want to send their children to school or not. The minister explained that pupils can bring a medical certificate to allow them not attend physical classes, if they live with chronically ill persons in the same house.
PM Orban: Teachers need to adapt for simultaneous teaching
Teachers will have to adapt themselves so that they can teach both for the pupils in the classroom and also for those who are online, PM Ludovic Orban said on Wednesday.
“This thing is very important and I am convinced that the great part of the teachers have understood, many have attended the training programmes held during the summer”, the PM added.