It is the day of a return to school marked by uncertainties for primary and nursery schools.

The students will resume their way to school this Monday, while maintaining a strict health protocol risks causing multiple class closures.

After three weeks of closure of all schools to fight against the Covid-19 epidemic, the government has decided to maintain its schedule: return to school this Monday for schoolchildren, while middle school and high school students continue to distance themselves until May 3, date on which they will be able to return to their establishments, often in half-gauge.

The goal is to hold ten weeks until the end of the school year, without this reopening worsening the dynamics of the epidemic, which remains at a high level.

Parents in uncertainty

"It is essential to bring the children back to school", hammered Sunday on LCI Jean-Michel Blanquer, estimating that the institution "is not responsible in itself for the epidemic" and that schools are places “where we respect barrier gestures more” than elsewhere.

The Minister of National Education is due to go Monday morning with President Emmanuel Macron to a school in Melun.

Parents are still uncertain.

The strict health protocol provides for the closure of a class from the first case of Covid-19 confirmed among its students.

"It is a really very strict protocol which will inevitably lead to a significant number of class closures", admitted Jean-Michel Blanquer, who however prefers "a small minority of closed classes than all closed schools".

Despite criticism from part of the medical profession and the fears of some teachers, the executive consistently defends its objective of keeping schools open to avoid an "educational air hole".

According to Unesco, France was the European country which closed its schools the least between March 2020 and March 2021 with 10 weeks of closure in total, against 28 in Germany and 47 in the United States.

Many planned saliva tests

In addition, the stake of the recovery is to massify the capacities of tests for children and teachers.

In kindergartens and primary schools, 400,000 saliva tests must be deployed from the start of the school year, with a target of 600,000 per week by mid-May.

But the novelty lies mainly in the arrival of self-tests: the government has ordered 64 million for students over 15 years, teachers and other staff of National Education.

Adults should take this simple nasal swab twice a week at home, the result of which is known in fifteen minutes.

From May 10, high school students will be subject to it every week in their establishment.

The operation is already worrying some teachers, who do not feel competent to supervise it.

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