Commenting on arrangements for January confirmed today by the
Department for Education, Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General
Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“The NEU was amongst the first to ask for mass testing of school
pupils. But today’s announcement by Government, made on the last
day of term, demonstrates ministerial panic rather than rational
and responsible action in response to the exponential rise in
Covid-19 infection rates amongst secondary school pupils.
“The government is asking secondary school leaders to contact,
train and deploy an army of volunteers to administer testing to
the whole of England’s secondary school population. Armed with a
30-minute training video they are being asked to administer tests
to adolescents – who may have their own views about what is quite
an invasive procedure. Parents will be required to give their
consent to their children being tested. They will have to be
contacted – in itself, a huge task.
“The presence of year 11 and 13 pupils on the school site at the
same time as the testing arrangements and procedures are being
put in place will be extremely problematic. It is highly likely
that these pupils will return from their Christmas holiday with
higher levels of Covid-19 infection. Those who test positive will
be required to isolate, which involves a huge amount of school
staff taking the time to contact parents and to trace close
contacts. Yet again government ministers fail to understand the
fundamental issues involved, and the effort and time it takes to
operate Covid security procedures in schools.
“All of these problems are compounded by the findings of the BMJ
that half of positive cases are missed if the tests are not done
by trained medical personnel. Governors and parents have an
important role to play in children and young people’s education.
The majority of them, however, have no medical training. However
well intentioned, they will not be able to identify and isolate a
significant proportion of Covid cases amongst the secondary
school age population – many will be asymptomatic.
“We are writing to today with
a series of urgent questions about today’s announcement.
“This announcement follows a long and ignoble tradition by this
government of treating school leaders with contempt. Trust is
completely broken. This Government has finally put a seal on an
exodus of education professionals in 2021.”
