MPs will gather to consider a temporary legislative change that would allow pupils to take turns learning at school or at home if the coronavirus epidemic flares up again next autumn. The reform aims to allow children at risk from the disease -- and others -- to continue their schooling at home if needed and lawmakers hope to finalise it by Midsummer.
The Ministry of Education and Culture is looking at options in the event that the situation requires students to maintain a safe distance at school. The reform under consideration would allow schools to adopt the temporary distance learning measure without having to close. Currently, legislation requires primary education to be administered via contact teaching in schools.
The ministry is therefore considering whether or not to amend the law to allow half of students to alternate between learning at home and at school. This would allow schools to ensure proper safety distances between pupils.
There are 500,000 children in primary education in Finland who would be affected by the proposed changes. About one-tenth of them did not return to class on 14 May when the government re-opened schools.
Meanwhile for students belonging to risk groups, as well as pupils with family members in risk groups, education has been somewhat mixed this spring. Some municipalities have offered the option of distance learning for both groups. Others meanwhile have only made special arrangements for children who are at risk from the virus.
Distancing a challenge for schools
Some schools are looking forward to the option of being able to offer pupils alternate remote and live learning sessions. Espoo education director Kaisa Toivonen said the proposed reform is essential for schools to be able to ensure proper distancing in the autumn.
Because the temporary spaces that are now being used to sufficiently separate kids will not be available next school year, the municipality said it simply won’t have enough space for children to distance. Espoo has roughly 33,000 children in primary school and just 2,300 of them did not return to school for contact teaching this spring.
Since schools re-opened, the city has placed children in vocational colleges and upper secondary schools as well as in libraries and youth centres. None of these alternate spaces will be available come autumn. Toivonen said she assumes that new vocational and upper secondary school students will be given the option of distance learning when the next academic year begins.
Ombudsman: At-risk kids should be in distance learning
When schools do re-open in autumn an estimated one in ten children will remain at home. Education and Culture Ministry senior director Eeva-Riitta Pirhonen told Yle that 88 percent of primary school children reported to school on 14 May. That means that 12 percent or 52,000 children did not return to class.
Some of these children belong to risk groups; others have family members who do. On the same day that contact teaching resumed, the Equality Ombudsman stated that at-risk pupils as well as others whose family members belong to risk groups should have special arrangements for schooling, in effect distance learning.
The Ombudsman’s office said that it received a complaint about the statement from Helsinki, which said that schools there had been told that according to education legislation only children in risk groups have the right to special arrangements; others do not.
However the Ombudsman said that this position might violate equality laws as well as the constitution and laws guaranteeing the rights of children. The Ombudsman said that municipalities such as Vantaa had adopted a more equitable approach and also provided distance learning options for children with family members in risk groups.
One day later the National Agency for Education recommended that special arrangements for schooling should be provided for both children belonging to risk groups and children whose family members were at risk.
