Spain’s students plan strike over Covid, Germany extends travel warnings

Madrid Desk, Aug 26 (efe-epa).- Spanish secondary school students are planning to go on strike when classrooms reopen next month in protest of what they see as a mishandling of the resumption of the school year amid rising Covid-19 cases.

German authorities have extended official advice against travel to foreign countries as well as prolonging a reduce-hours payment scheme to help avoid mass layoffs and Portugal urges citizens not to take past “achievements” against coronavirus for granted.

SPAIN

As Spain’s coronavirus caseload continues to mount, with more than 3,500 new infections in the last 24 hours, the country’s student union on Wednesday announced a strike in the public education sector for 16-18 September, when schools are due to reopen.

The union’s spokeswoman Coral Latorre said: “We want to return to school.”

But she added that the organization wanted to avoid the “disaster” of distance learning and for young people to stop being “criminalized” for fresh coronavirus outbreaks in Spain.

Secondary school teachers are also due to strike in the capital Madrid between later in September, claiming the regional government lacked a solid plan for the return of students.

All of Spain’s education centers were closed between March and June during the state of alarm to control the spread of Covid-19.

In a bid to salvage the curriculum, regional administrations, which are in charge of education in Spain, replaced in-person classes with distance learning. But the process exposed inequalities among students, with some not in possession of a computer or an internet connection to join in.

There are just two weeks until 8.2 million non-university students are slated to return to the classrooms amid a climate of concern for families, teachers and the students themselves.