ASSEMBLY RECALLED AS SCHOOL COVID ABSENCES RISE

This afternoon the Assembly will be recalled to discuss a recent resurgence in pupil absences in school due to Covid-19 or contact tracing.

It is a move that was initially proposed by Sinn Féin MLA Pat Sheehan, which intends to give the assembly the opportunity to understand the current situation and also ask the Education Minister what she and the department are going to do about it.

The Assembly was originally meant to return to the Chamber on Monday, however, the sudden move to recall them days before they are meant to return proves how serious and important this is.

With the new school term not even finished its first full week, the Assembly have a lot to deal with if this is just the starting point.

The stress that schools and pupils are under this early in the term was not expected with it being up to the schools to identify and inform students about close contact situations and isolation rules, school principals had enough and wanted an early Assembly return to fix the issue.

Many pupils across Northern Ireland have been told to self-isolate and book a PCR test in recent days. The newly updated guidance issued on 26 August detailing those pupils who are identified as a close contact of a positive case will have to isolate until they receive a negative PCR result. While also completing a further test on day 8 after the contact was discovered.

To many this may be confusing and hard to understand, the new guidance was updated to prevent long-term absences from school, if the child is negative and has to remain isolated. This, explained by the Department of Education, was a way of preventing unnecessary absences while also ensuring that all the rules and regulations are routinely followed.

So what will the outcome of today’s meeting be? Well, the answer to that is not fully known however I gather that with the Education Minister having a lot of questions to answer I would suggest to expect Michelle McIlveen to explain the current changes being made and the precautions the department are taking to prevent any further disruption.

With this in mind, cast your mind back to exactly this time last year. Around September and October, the now-former Education Minister Peter Weir expressed the same reassurance and phrases when he told the public that the Department was on top of everything and that it was all under control.

And on top of that just weeks after that message of reassurance we were talking about an extended mid-term break to try and curb the rising rates of Covid-19. Although we are in a much better position now than we were then with the vaccination programme proving a great success, it is still something that you can’t rule it and if anything has taught it has been Covid-19.