Initial government plans on school closures and coronavirus were based, like much official understanding, on flu.
Children are so important in spreading the flu that the start of the school year commences each year’s epidemics in the northern and southern hemispheres.
Moving school starting dates backward or forward moves peaks by the same amount. School closures flatten peaks, while countries with long summer holidays tend to have less severe flu seasons.
Coronavirus appears to be completely different. There is no scientific consensus yet on whether children can even pass the disease on, or at what age this effect might taper off - if we are lucky, it could apply into the late teens. The World Health Organisation says it has found no instances of child to adult transmission. Researchers have observed young siblings who share a home failing to pass the virus to each other. Switzerland is lifting lockdown on the presumption children under 10 are not infectious. However, there have only been a handful of studies.
When Denmark reopened its primary schools one month ago the infection rate briefly went up before coming back down again. One possible explanation is that adults infected each other on the school run and perhaps in the staff room, with the impact of this being limited, as only the same adults met in those settings every day.
But the truth is nobody knows and it will be months before dependable answers are available. It may be the case that by the time schools in Northern Ireland are expected to reopen in September there will be enough evidence from around the world to say it is safe for children, teachers and wider society. We may hope so, as nothing less is going to work.
Stormont’s lockdown exit plan presumes danger and envisages phased, partial reopening over a lengthy period, with a mix of classroom and remote learning. Even in the fifth and final exit stage, only “early years” classes might return full-time.
This will not be feasible for the vast majority of parents or provide children with an education.
By September, almost everyone fortunate enough to still have a job will have resumed it. They will not be in a position to supervise children at home.
Partial reopening, with alternating weeks for different year groups, will remind every parent of the September ‘phasing in’ for primary one pupils. Many parents have to take the whole month off as work and childcare are impossible to arrange around such a schedule. It will be even more impossible for families with more than one child at school, each in their own phase, probably out of phase with the others. What happens if this drags on to Christmas, or beyond?
Where families can facilitate remote learning, it still cannot be a substitute for the classroom. Few households are set up with the required space and equipment.
Northern Ireland’s schools do have world-leading equipment but the past two months have revealed even this to be inadequate. The system to broadcast teaching live over the internet, installed a decade ago, remains blocked by unions over privacy fears.
The network to distribute teaching materials, while technically effective, is impervious to quality control. Some of the lessons being sent home are excellent. Others are worksheets photographed on mobile phones. Getting a grip on this would be a Herculean task and there is no sign of the Department of Education embarking on it.
At the back of everyone’s mind is the prospect of second and third peaks in the autumn and spring, with schools shutting down completely again. The entire academic year could be a bust. Should children be given the right to retake it, progressing through the rest of their education a year older than usual? It is easy to foresee many parents making this demand.
Teaching unions say staff should not work without appropriate social distancing, personal protective equipment and regular testing - all practical if meant to prevent transmission between adults in a school setting but a problem on a different scale if children are also considered potentially infectious.
Stormont’s exit plan says reopening will be based on “medical and scientific advice”.
Everything depends on what science can say by September on the infectivity of children, and whether this is accepted by nervous teachers, parents and politicians.
