Following the announcement of school closures, Together Gibraltar has issued a statement highlighting that “not enough consideration”  has been given to frontline workers.

A statement from Together Gibraltar follows below:

TG welcomes the announcement made today by the Department of Education  regarding the closure of all schools, however, it laments the time wasted before  being finally hit by a serious wave of the virus, and that not enough consideration  has been given to frontline workers. 

Whilst many of us have enjoyed a relaxing Christmas break, our frontline workers  have been flat out caring for the sick. Some of them have been required to study in  their spare time to qualify to administer the vaccine, when it arrives. 

TG is incensed that Government has deemed it appropriate to return this debt of  gratitude we owe them by setting up a raft of barriers and obligations for their  children's education. We find it ludicrous that frontline workers now have to seek  permission from their Heads of Department, then only send their children when both  of the couple's shifts overlap and then teach them the learning set when they return  home. 

We feel that schools should be open for the children of frontline workers, irrespective  of shift patterns and that the teachers should ensure that the children work through  the material set for them by their subject/form teachers. At a time when everyone is  making huge sacrifices, none more so than our frontline workers, they need nothing  short of our full and unquestioning support. 

The party believes that right now, with the current levels of spread and the drama  beginning to unfold in our hospital, very little can be done other than paralyse all  activity and wait for the storm to subside. The party laments, however, having  reached this situation so unprepared, and believes much more could have been  done to prevent and prepare for this eventuality, particularly from an Educational  point of view. The party notes with sadness the disparity between the standards set  in the UK, where online, teacher led learning of the highest standard has been made  a legal obligation. This leaves out children at a severe disadvantage with the  students they will be competing for university spots with. 

In the summer, when contagion levels were close to 0 (even though further waves  were expected), the department sat on its laurels and did not implement a serious  contingency plan to adapt our education system to a pandemic environment.  Prophylactic measures in schools have been close to non-existent, with masks only  introduced partially in the last weeks before the Christmas holiday. When it was still  possible, no provisions were made to facilitate alternative online learning to reduce  numbers in schools. In brief, the department rolled out a substandard response to a  pandemic that we were seemingly immune to.  

It is our understanding that most relevant stakeholders (union, Senior Leadership  team and Dept of Education) are against the implementation of videoconference  classes, and that these reservations stem from the difficult logistics that this mode of  learning entails. We understand that at this stage, with contagion out of control,  many civil servants sick or isolated, and our healthcare under significant strain,  setting up the logistics to enable proper online teaching would be impossible, but we  believe the Ministry should be called out for its lack of foresight and management its  responsibilities throughout the pandemic. We should have prepared for this  inevitable and horrendous second wave by getting our Plan A and Plan B in place as  TG has continually urged the government to do since the summer. Instead, we are  facing burdening our young generations with an educational deficit they will  somehow have to overcome.