A main challenge is keeping students comfortable (for example from the cold) while also trying to keep them protected against covid Shutterstock

A main challenge is keeping students comfortable (for example from the cold) while also trying to keep them protected against covid Shutterstock

"Minister, stop the fanfare! Take responsibility before it is too late," Féduse wrote in a press release on Sunday. The teachers' union has criticised the lack of measures taken in education. It is asking that the wearing of masks be applied in the classroom, or that certain courses be carried out remotely.

The SNE teachers’ union asked for a temperature check at the entrance just a few days earlier, while the OGBL is calling for an investment in ventilation systems for air purification, since teachers are required to air classrooms. 

Disinfection before and after board use

At the European School of Luxembourg in Kirchberg, masks are already compulsory in the classroom--a decision that was made by management, according to Muriel Prinz, a French teacher at the establishment, who says she is handling the situation pretty well for the time being. 

She teaches 12 to 17-year-olds, sometimes 28 per class. “There is still an obvious overcrowding. Honestly, they are not a metre apart from each other." According to her, some are reluctant to wear the mask, leaving it only on their mouths, but these are isolated cases.

The main difficulty: to continue making the course lively despite everything. For that, she kept putting students at the board. "They disinfect their hands before and after." Prinz says she is vigilant. “I disinfect my hands every time I distribute copies or correct them on the train. I change my mask every four hours,” she explains.

Doors and windows remain open most of the day. This is not a problem for his class, since "the heat is on”, although this isn’t exactly energy efficient. 

Going back to distance learning does not seem to be the best solution though for Prinz. She had the unpleasant feeling during lockdown of "leaving behind" some students for whom she could not follow up, who, for example, did not get up every morning. In the classroom, "there are more interactions."

The problem of absenteeism

Bob Heymans, mathematics teacher at Lycée Josy Barthel in Mamer, does not share the same point of view. “A big difficulty is with absences: so far, I have not had a single week this year when my classes were full. This means that each assignment in class, for example, has to be scheduled multiple times, but above all, this leads on the part of the pupils to a considerable delay, and you really wonder if real teaching is currently possible, or anyway at what price,” he said. For him, the government should require homeschooling classes where there was a positive case, as is the case in his school, or resort for a few weeks to alternating between groups A and B, “at least at the upper level.”

This could improve the comfort of students. The teachers have to keep the tilt-turn windows open during lessons to ventilate the room. As a consequence, "A lot of students come to school wearing jackets, even bringing blankets."

He's taking care of 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st cycle students this year and regrets that it isn’t the case everywhere that wearing a mask is compulsory. 

"It is tiring to speak out loud to an audience wearing a mask for hours," he says, admitting to having found the rules too restrictive and exaggerated at the start. "But, in view of the evolution of the numbers, I think that, unfortunately, these measures are necessary, and therefore justified," he thinks today.

Recruiting teachers 

"We could consider wearing a mask," states Patrick Remakel, teacher at the Hesperange school for children aged 6-12 years, even if he is not sure that the practice would come naturally among the youngest learners. The same goes for distance lessons, which are difficult with the little ones.

Rather, he is asking the government to provide devices for entrance temperature checks and to send student with a fever home to avoid contamination. Above all, "we should find larger rooms or divide the classes in half by recruiting more staff," he thinks. The teacher often finds himself in difficulty with parents' questions: "They are waiting for answers from us." For example, some people complain because their children are too close to the window.

Asked by RTL on Monday evening and by 100,7 Tuesday morning, education minister Claude Meisch (DP) indicated that there would be no extension of the All Saints’ holidays or compulsory mask wearing in schools for the time being. However, he expressed his concerns about school transport and announced that he wanted to submit a law to recruit more teachers by simplifying the conditions of recruitment, so replacements may not necessarily have to have done extensive teacher training, for example.

This article originally appeared in French on Paperjam.lu and has been translated and edited for Delano.