Plans for up to a quarter of teachers to be off work due to Omicron, says Nadhim Zahawi

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has said preparations are being made for many as a quarter of all teachers to be off work in the coming weeks as Covid infections increase with the return of schools following the Christmas break.

Some schools are already reporting as many as 40 per cent staff shortages, he said.

The education secretary said that the government was acting responsibly by making contingency plans for as many as 25 per cent absences across England, but Liberal Democrats said that it amounted to an “admission of failure” in the drive to keep schools open.

Mr Zahawi insisted that the Omicron wave of coronavirus will not be allowed to disrupt vocational exams due to take place this month, pledging that they will go ahead in January as planned.

He confirmed that GCSE and A-level exams will not go fully back to the pre-Covid system in the summer, but will include an element of teacher assessment for 2022 only, to reflect the disruption to pupils’ education from the series of lockdowns.

The education secretary defended instructions for pupils to wear face-coverings in the classroom, despite Department for Education research suggesting that it cuts the number of children infected by only 0.6 percentage points.

And he acknowledged that vaccination of 12-15 year-olds needs to go “much, much faster”, after a target of jabbing a majority by the October half-term was missed.

Speaking to BBC1’s Sunday Morning, Mr Zahawi said the next few weeks will be “bumpy” for schools.

He praised the “Dunkirk spirit” they have shown in ensuring face-to-face learning can continue during the Omicron outbreak, and said that only 1-1.2 per cent of English secondaries were fully closed last week, though 10 per cent reported some closures or staggered opening.

Staff absences due to illness and self-isolation has risen from 8 per cent at the end of last term to 8.5 per cent now, he said.

But he added: “That will increase, no doubt, because now schools are back we’re going to see an increase in infections.

“We have to make plans for every outcome. That’s the responsible thing to do at the moment.

“Last week’s review said actually some schools have had higher than that - up to 40 per cent absent - and they still maintained their ability to open for face-to-face education, which is great. We want to learn from them.

“But I have to have contingency plans for 10, 15, 20, or 25 per cent absenteeism because obviously Omicron is far more infectious.”

Mr Zahawi said that vaccinations in schools will resume on Monday, telling interviewer Sophie Raworth: “We are over 50 per cent, so over 1.2 million 12-to-15 year-olds have had the vaccine. But We have to go much, much faster, which is why we’re going back into schools on Monday with the school age vaccination programme.”

He insisted that it was right for pupils to be told to wear masks in class, despite a survey released last week which showed that 3 per cent of pupils in 123 schools using face-coverings were absent due to Covid within two to three weeks, compared to 3.6 per cent where no masks were used.

“That’s still thousands of pupils, it’s significant,” he said. “Those are kids and this is their future.”

Defending the decision to mandate masks, Mr Zahawi said: “Because Omicron is a quantum more infectious than Delta, I felt it was the right thing to do based on the evidence.

“But I don’t want to see masks in the classroom for a day longer than is necessary. And on 26 January, we’ll review that and I hope we’ll be able to take it away.”

The education secretary also defended his decision to issue only 8,000 air purifiers to the 24,000 secondary schools in England.

He said that 350,000 CO2 monitors had been distributed to schools to identify the classrooms where adequate ventilation cannot be achieved by measures such as opening windows.

Only those rooms which could not easily deliver ventilation were being provided with purifiers, he said.

It was “only right” that ministers avoided spending public money on “350,000 air purifiers that we don’t need”, he said.

Mr Zahawi repeated his pledge that GCSE and A-level exams will go ahead in England this summer, after two years in which they were replaced by teacher assessments.

He acknowledged that contingency planning was under way in case of a renewed surge of Covid, but said: “My absolute commitment is that exams are going ahead, both this January and for the summer for GCSEs and A-levels.”

School leaders will be informed on 7 February of the precise format for the summer exams, which will be conducted on the basis of “the mean between teacher assessment and pre-Covid arrangements” in 2022, before returning to normal grading next year. Students are also expected to be given more information about the questions they will face in exams.

Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Munira Wilson said: “Planning for up to a quarter of teachers to be off with Covid is an admission of failure.

“The government is failing to do enough to keep schools safe and protect our children’s education and well-being.

“Ministers are spending twice as much on a royal yacht than it would cost to provide an air purifier to every classroom. That tells you everything about this government’s warped sense of priorities.”