A draft posted on the Health Ministry’s website has stirred heated debates in the past 24 hours. The ministry’s and the National Public Health Institute’s recommendations were that school should start in autumn with 15 pupils at the most in one classroom and with classes that last 30 minutes. However, the document has been withdrawn from the public debate this morning, with authorities mentioning that the working document was an older one and is no longer current under the existing epidemiological stage, and thus it had not been approved.
However, the document had just been put in public debate, with the Health minister announcing last evening that it had also been sent for consultation to the Education Ministry.
The minister said that the rules in schools this autumn will much depend also on the developments of the coronavirus epidemic in Romania this summer.
What the draft was saying? The public health officials said that the schools’ schedule must be organised so that overcrowding should be avoided in schools. The starting hours must vary for every school group, while breaks should be increased to 15-20 minutes each so that pupils can have time to go to the toilet without staying close to one another.
The draft also said that every classroom should have no more than 15 pupils, with each pupil having a safety space of 4sqm and so will the teacher.
Pupils should not stay in school more than 4 hours a day, while the duration of a class must not exceed 30 minutes.
Every school is also compelled to have a person to coordinate activities to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.