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Will teachers and students really refuse to go back to school because of the COVID?
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The graduating classes and teachers are afraid to return to school due to the lack of vaccinations; many fear an additional quarantine in May when the school-leaving exams will be organised.
There is no point in going back to high schools for two weeks before graduation – according to Eduline, based on the emails they received from students. In addition to it being unnecessary, many fear that if they get infected at school at the end of April, they will fall ill or be quarantined during the written phase of the school-leaving exams.
The majority of Eduline readers who participated in the survey think that
in-person education is unsafe and unnecessary before
graduation and the opening should be rescheduled to mid-May at best.
Most students consider it pointless, but many have also called the opening of schools explicitly dangerous. They fear that if they become infected between April 19 and early May, they will get sick or be quarantined by graduation.
Not only students but teachers also fear the opening. The tension escalated to such extents that some teachers said they consider civil disobedience. A high school teacher stated that they will remain in digital education if they do not gain protection until schools open. They argue that in this case, they would not be refusing to work, only to work in dangerous conditions and potentially infect their graduate students weeks before graduation.
A teacher at a high school in Budapest posted her thoughts on Facebook:
“If by April 19th or any time the school reopens, I will not develop immunity from the vaccine(s) for which I have not yet received a confirmation message, I will not return to in-person education. That does not mean ’no school’, even if the anti-pedagogical part of this country will be happy to interpret it that way”
— they wrote. In their view, they do not refuse work but continue to take on the extra task that distance learning requires