At the beginning of next week, more than 1100 elementary school students will return to three schools in Vilnius, and other cities are also preparing to resume contact education for elementary school students.
As Alina Kovalevskaja, the chief adviser on education issues of the Vilnius Municipality, told BNS, this week the first coronavirus tests using the cumulative method are being conducted for schoolchildren, their families and the school community with their families.
Vyturis primary school and Baltupių pro-gymnasium plan to resume contact education on Monday, J. Basanavičius pro-gymnasium will open its doors to primary school children on Tuesday.
"Practically, 80-90 percent are returning. For example, in Baltupių pro-gymnasium, all classes return, in J. Basanavičius pro-gymnasium - 17 out of 20 classes, and in Vyturi - 16 out of 17. In total, about 1140 students in three schools are returning," said A. Kovalevskaja.
The government has allowed the Vilnius municipality to choose schools at its own discretion, where the contact education of primary classes could be renewed through the application of cumulative testing, for three weeks this pilot project is taking place in the only institution in Lithuania so far - Vilnius Duke Gediminas Pro-gymnasium.
According to the data of the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports, about 60 other institutions from other 25 municipalities of the country also expressed their desire to join the initiative. It is considered that some of them could also open next week.
As representatives of the ministry informed BNS, the decision of the Minister of Health Protection, Head of Operations Arūnas Dulkis is expected on Friday, explaining in more detail the procedures to be followed by institutions renewing contact education.
According to the ministry, whether students in at least some of these schools will return to classes next week will depend on the capacity of municipal administrations in organizing testing and examining samples, since not all municipalities are conducting them.
At that time, according to A. Kovalevskaja, the results in Vilnius are encouraging, because so far no cases of coronavirus infection have been detected during the educational process. The latest tests at the Gediminas pro-gymnasium are conducted on Friday.
The Vilnius municipality is also conducting a survey of elementary school students in other schools and promises to evaluate the possibilities of opening more institutions, as the testing requires the use of specialists from the Vilnius Public Health Office who have experience working at mobile checkpoints.
"But we know that most schools already want to return to contact education," she said.
The cumulative method is applied when studying several samples of a group of individuals at once. If the test is positive, each person is retested separately with a PCR test. If one family member is diagnosed with COVID-19, the child must self-isolate for two weeks at home and continue learning remotely.
The first tests are performed on all families or households of students and school staff, then every 4-7 days tests are performed only on the students and staff themselves.
Author Ignas Jačauskas
