There can only be enormous sympathy for the pupils, parents and teachers who have found themselves caught up in further significant upheaval as a result of the deeply disturbing rise in Covid-19 infection rates.
Drawing a balance between protecting the education of our children and responding to increasingly serious wider health concerns has been a major challenge for the authorities during most of the last year.
Considerable credit is due to all our schools for the measured way in which they have handled the crisis and displayed huge patience in the most trying of circumstances.
However, their attempts to finalise their short term planning commitments have regularly been frustrated by a lack of flexibility on the part of the Stormont education minister Peter Weir.
He faces a range of unenviable dilemmas, but it has been obvious for weeks that his approach to the scheduled reopening of schools on January 4 needed to be urgently reviewed.
The coronavirus statistics have been steadily worsening, with a record 2,143 new cases within a 24-hour period across Northern Ireland reported on Wednesday.
Perceptions that the pandemic predominantly targeted senior citizens have also been changing rapidly, with health minister Robin Swann pointing out that the level of outbreaks in the 20/39 age group had jumped from 27.5 pc to 41.5 pc during December.
Insisting that pupils return for face to face schooling at a time when the rest of society is in strict lockdown made little sense, but Mr Weir attempted to stick to the existing schedules despite expressions of grave concern from respected voices.
There was particular alarm over suggestions that primary school children were effectively being forced back into classrooms to facilitate the contentious 11-plus-style tests which have been strongly backed by the education minister.
Mr Weir eventually relented through the announcement yesterday that primary school pupils would be taught remotely from home for the first week of the new term, after which they are due back at school, with separate arrangements for the post primary sector.
It is hard to understand why all these matters could not have been clarified at a much earlier stage and there will be an expectation that the basic wellbeing of both pupils and staff will be more firmly placed at the heart of the decision making process in 2021.
