Belarusian School Students To Be Taken To Museums In Vacations

Both teachers and parents are outraged.

On Monday, school holidays start in Belarus, which will actually fall on the peak of the fourth wave of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, school camps are planned for children, as well as excursions and other activities, despite the unfavorable epidemiological situation. Although children mostly develop a mild form of the disease, they carry the viruses home and pass them on to their relatives. Including the elderly, in whom the disease can be quite difficult, writes nn.by.

Vacation plans have already appeared on the websites of schools in Belarus. Guided tours, games, quizzes, school camps, etc. Deputy Head of the Main Directorate of Educational Work and Youth Policy of the Ministry of Education Aliaksandr Matsyushonak noted that school kids will be actively busy during the autumn holidays:

"The class teachers will traditionally take the children on excursions. As before, pedagogical support will be provided in the implementation of joint Internet projects with students. In addition, it is planned to organize events for the education in the sphere of law of participants in the educational process."

"The other day there was a working meeting on the occasion of the autumn holidays. What we heard on it shocked me personally, - says a teacher of one of the schools in the capital's Malinauka district. - The head teacher said: "there's an order from above - not to be afraid of covid: "We take those schoolchildren who come to school on vacation to the cinema, on excursions, to museums". But at this rate we will finish off those who have not yet been finished off.

We discussed this topic with colleagues. Many were outraged. There are not enough teachers in the school anyway - many are sick with covid. It happens that during classes, children sit alone - there is no teacher.

This is prohibited, so most often one teacher is split into two classes. First, on the go, he explains a new topic to one of them, gives them an assignment and runs to the next office to try to do the same with the second class. Believe me, the teachers are very exhausted and work in really difficult conditions. At home we also have children and parents. Many people think about quitting their jobs.

But there are those who said: "I have to feed my family. If I lose my job, no one will help." So yes, some will take kids everywhere. But I personally, like some of my colleagues, will come to the children, study with them, but I will cancel all these trips to public places for a variety of reasons."

Interestingly, opinions differ among parents as to what to do with their children during the holidays.

"The hardest thing is for the parents of elementary school children. You cannot leave these children alone at home. But after reading the parent chat the other day, I, frankly, was very surprised - says the mother of a fourth-grader from Minsk Volha. - Before each vacation, teachers always ask to provide information about the address, in which city and with whom the children will be staying during the vacation.

And so I open the parent chat, and I see that almost every second father is going to send their children to grandmothers on vacation.

It turns out that some will go with teachers to museums and excursions, others will disperse throughout the country to their grandmothers, and then we will all together accuse the doctors that the hospital beds have run out, and they cannot save all the sick.

I agree, you can't be categorical, you need to take into account the circumstances of each family. But really, for the sake of the safety of those closest to them, parents are not able to take a week of vacation at their own expense or somehow group together. I don’t want to speak in slogans, but we, parents, in this situation, do not look much better than some officials who are capable of breaking their foreheads for the sake of merit."