An education sector leader has welcomed extra masks being supplied for primary school children, but has questioned the timing and says it will be a challenge to reinstate a culture of wearing them.
The government has put focus on mask-wearing at schools, providing 50 masks for every child in schools and kura. Photo:
The government announced yesterday that 50 child-sized masks will be provided for every child in schools and kura nationwide.
"It's going to be a bit of a conundrum for some people" - Principals Federation president Cherie Taylor-Patel
It will happen from the beginning of term 3 until the end of the year, and is in addition to the adult-sized masks already offered to children from year 8 up. The government has not mandated mask-wearing in schools.
Yesterday, Covid-19 Response Minister Ayesha Verrall announced the country would remain at traffic light setting 'orange', as case numbers were starting to rise.
She said the B.5 variant of Omicron was predicted to become the dominant strain in the coming weeks a different variant to what most New Zealanders had already caught.
Guidelines on testing and isolation have therefore been updated, as well as the new focus on supplying masks in schools. Schools are also being offered help with heating and improving ventilation.
Principal's Federation president Cherie Taylor-Patel said she welcomed the mask provision, but questioned the timing and suggested introducing a new mask-wearing system would have its problems in the absence of a government mandate.
"These are masks that would have been great to have at the beginning of this term and with six days to go until the holidays to have to think about how to put this new regime of mask-wearing back into schools when the government hasn't mandated mask-wearing anywhere. It's going to be a bit of a conundrum for some people," she told Morning Report.
Taylor-Patel said the move may re-ignite tensions across some communities, but that protective measures were necessary.
"I think schools have worked hard for their communities," she said.
"They understand where there is differences of opinion about masks and some parents still feel very strongly that children shouldn't wear masks. But, at the same time, classes have been like petri dishes this term - we have had waves and waves of illness go through schools, with Covid but also the other winter illnesses.
"So, we do need some sort of circuit breaker and I think people are going to be working hard to reintroduce a culture of mask-wearing where possible."
Schools would work hard to reinstate a culture of mask-wearing, after attitudes had changed over the past year, she said.
"I know that in Auckland last year at the end of the year there was a very strong culture of mask-wearing in most schools.
"We got down to having eight Delta cases in Auckland at the end of 2021. But over this year, in an area that has continued to have Covid present in and around the community, the drop off of mask-wearing in schools has increased.
"There's been peer-pressure in there. There's also been a sense of, of it's not mandated and no one else is doing it in other places, it's harder to make the case to have it all day every day in schools."