A teaching union has warned that reopening schools in Scotland following the Christmas break will be “a challenge” in some areas due to staffing levels being affected by the Omicron surge.
In recent days Scotland has recorded its highest number of Covid cases since the pandemic began with the first minister Nicola Sturgeon warning on Wednesday that it was likely the steep increase in cases would continue “in the days and indeed possibly in the weeks ahead”.
Now Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS teaching union, has told STV news there is currently no clear picture about how school staffing levels will be impacted when the new term starts.
He said: “I think we will have to be alert to the fact that there will be potentially some challenges in particular hotspot areas.
“And it may be that remote learning for a week or for two weeks will be necessary in order to get young people at least back into education.”
Mr Flanagan added that the situation is “beyond our immediate control” due to the “unknown” around how many school staff have picked up Covid over the holidays.
Speaking about the record-high case numbers, Mr Flanagan said: “I think there will be a great deal of concern on the part of parents, pupils and, of course, school staff.
“We know that most teachers, for example, are double vaccinated.
“We’ve been urging members to take advantage of the booster programme, but people have been getting infected despite the vaccinations.
“So, I think there will be potentially a very real challenge around staff numbers in relation to schools reopening.”
Scottish schools will reopen following the Christmas holidays at different times depending on the local authority area but schools in Edinburgh, for instance, are scheduled to return on Wednesday (5 January).
This week Ms Sturgeon committed to introducing any changes to the rules on self-isolation by that date.
The self-isolation period in England has been reduced to seven days but remains 10 days in Scotland.
Ms Sturgeon said this week that such decisions were “finely balanced judgements” and that the Scottish government would come to a decision “in the next week”.
She added: “If we ease up too quickly on the self-isolation rules and do not take sufficient care, even though we would be doing that for good reasons, all we would do is contribute to the spread of the virus and increase the overall number of infections.”
In the meantime, she said the “sectoral exemption scheme” was available. This is the controversial scheme that allows essential workers, including teachers, to volunteer to return to work from self-isolation early if they test negative for the virus and if staff shortages are in danger of impacting the delivery of vital services, including education.
