All Students Should Be Held Back For Two Years

Students have lost two years of study as a result of lock downs and school closures. The only logical response, now, must be that all students should be held back for two years in school, so as to complete their education, and make up for the learning they have lost. Saying that, instead, devalued exam certificates could be issued is ridiculous, it doesn't change the fact that these students have missed a significant chunk of the learning they should have had. Its like sending out a car without wheels, but claiming its equally as good as every other car that has wheels. Put another way, would you be happy about having brain surgery done by a surgeon that missed two years of their training? 

The idea of allowing teachers to evaluate students rather than them undertaking exams is ridiculous in this context, as are the other alternatives. I have no doubt that a car without wheels might be a perfectly good car in respect of the bits it contains, it could be marked extremely highly on the quality of these parts, but it doesn't make up for the fact that it has a rather glaring defect in the fact that it is missing its wheels. Had it just been last year's education that had been missed, then, as I said last year, that could have been made up by having schools open during last year's Summer holidays, half-terms, weekends and so on. That obviously didn't happen, and now we have the prospect of schools being closed for most of this school year too. Indeed, as I wrote recently, given that schools will have been closed for two years, with learning moved online, it rather begs the question as to whether we shouldn't begin to just close schools permanently, and move all teaching online, which would provide massive savings in buildings, and in teachers salaries. 

But, that is not going to happen soon, so we have the question of how to deal with current students. Our kids are entitled to the full education we have paid for in our taxes and national insurance contributions, just as university students are entitled to the full education they have paid for in their fees. That means that the two years they will have missed, by this Summer, is owing to them, and they should get it by leaving school two years later than they otherwise would. That means they would have the education they need, and that has been paid for, and then, and only then, can their qualifications be equal to those of every other student that has gone before or goes after them. 

The idea that you could just equalise all this by giving them a devalued certificate based on the fraction of the learning they have been given is absurd. It is the same kind of mentality that says you can stop producing anything, but make up for it, by just printing a load more devalued bits of paper money tokens. 

The government's position is absurd. Matt Hancock, as with Boris Johnson, has rightly admitted that, in fact, schools are very safe places. Children are at statistically no risk whatsoever from COVID, and there is no evidence that teachers are any more prone to infection than any other group of workers. COVID almost exclusively affects the elderly, and particularly those over 80. There are very, very few teaching staff in that category. Indeed, there are few in the over 60 category, who have a higher risk, either. There will be teaching staff who have some underlying medical condition, suffer from obesity and so on, but the simple answer for them, is to put them on indefinite sick leave with full pay. The government says that its not the risk to students or teaching staff that justifies closing schools, but the risks to others in vulnerable groups outside school. That is bonkers. 

Again, the majority of parents of school students are going to be under 40, and so have almost as low a risk from COVID as do children. But, even for parents in the 40-60 age range, the risks from COVID are extremely low, unless they have some underlying medical condition. Again, in that minority of cases, the answer is for these kids to stay away from school, and other social contact, not to close the entire school. The governments further line is then, well grandparents could be at risk. Firstly, its then the responsibility of grandparents not to put themselves at risk of contagion from their kids and grandkids, just as they should, in general, be self-isolating themselves to prevent infection. Secondly, if kids are off school, then it is far more likely that they will be out playing with their friends, whatever restrictions might say, and its also more likely that, as their parents go in to work, they will be put in the care of grandparents, who should have been isolated from them, and so will be more likely to spread the virus into these vulnerable groups causing an even bigger spike in hospitalisations and deaths.