Within secondary education, the guideline is that students must also keep 1.5 metres apart from one another. 56% of school leaders indicate that ensuring compliance with this guideline everywhere and at all times is a (very) major challenge. It is manageable to maintain the required distance in the classroom, but more difficult in the corridors and on the school grounds. In addition, many school leaders observe that students outside school deal with maintaining a 1.5-metre distance ‘flexibly’. Not all students understand the necessity of the rule. One school leader says: “It is difficult to explain that young people up to the age of 18 are allowed to play sports without having to maintain 1.5 metres of distance, but that, for example, they must maintain that distance on the stairs and in the corridors at school.”
Under the current arrangements, between a quarter and a third of students can be present at most schools at the same time, meaning that distance learning and education at school have to alternate. 54% of school leaders indicate that it is complicated to organise this hybrid education effectively. School leaders fear a loss of quality in the longer term. One school leader says: “It is quite likely that if the school operating under the one-and-a-half-metre rule continues for much longer, students will increasingly struggle to learn because they will develop motivational problems. The personal development and socialisation aspects of education will also suffer as a result.”
View all the results of the survey ‘Reopening secondary schools’ here.