Kindergartens to Open Next School Year Without Partitions

Despite the uncertainty of the coronavirus crisis, the Health Ministry is formulating the outline for opening the next school year in a little over a month.

According to a report on Kan News, the outline for the start of the school year is: Kindergartens will study six days a week as usual without partitions in the classrooms. Students in grades 1-3 will study at least five days a week at school and will have up to 18 students in a class. Fourth graders will study four days in school and another day of learning at home, with up to 18 students per class. Students from 5th to 12th grade – one or two days a week at school and everything else through distance learning.

The issue of distance learning is a particular challenge for the chareidi public, where most educational institutions will not use the Internet. The telephone lines option is not very efficient and makes it much more difficult for students.

The matter of the yeshivos is not yet finalized, whether the yeshivos will be reopened in a capsule (bubble) format that has been proven to be quite successful.

Education Minister Yoav Galant said in the Knesset plenum this week that “there is no justification for closing the educational institutions. The rate of infected children is less than a third of their share of the population.”