Coronavirus: Peter Weir defends decision to reopen schools

Northern Ireland's education minister has defended his decision to reopen schools in Janaury.

Teaching unions have criticised his plans which were set out on Friday.

Peter Weir says his decision was taken in line with public health advice and that the executive will keep it under review.

The chair of Stormont's education committee has submitted an assembly recall petition for Mr Weir to give an urgent statement on the school plans.

Thirty MLAs must sign Alliance MLA Chris Lyttle's petition in order to have the assembly recalled next week. The NI Assembly is currently in recess until 10 January.

"It is imperative the education minister makes a statement to the assembly on the scientific and medical advice he has received relating to the safety of school restart, transfers tests and other examinations scheduled during the lockdown in January, and sets out the contingency plans he has in place to mitigate any Covid-related disruption of these arrangements," said Mr Lyttle.

A six-week lockdown will begin in Northern Ireland on 26 December.

Speaking to BBC News NI about his decision on reopening schools Mr Weir said: "Obviously the executive keeps everything under review but I wanted to give clarity and certainty to parents, to children, to teachers and other school staff.

"Its clear we need to prioritise education, we looked at every option, but any option which involved closure of schools, on a short term basis, or even certain year groups, would have been very damaging to our children's education."

Mr Weir had also called for children in Primary 7 to be able to sit the post-primary transfer test in their own primary schools.

Graham Gault of the National Head Teachers Association has criticised Mr Weir's decisions, saying that the announcements come at a bad time with transfer tests looming in the new year.

"When principals will be concentrating on reopening their school and dealing with all what that entails in the middle of this pandemic.

"For the minister to drop this with three weeks to go, two of which are closure and expects primary school principals to run risk assessments, to sort out staffing, to move organisations, who rent out their halls on Saturday mornings and so on.

He added: "It's unrealistic, it's impossible and its absolutely cruel."

Schools reopened in August having been closed since March and have remained open since with the exception of an extended two-week break for half term.

They did not close early ahead of the Christmas holidays.

Mr Weir said he was "mindful of the impact the pandemic is having on our children and young people, particularly those who are vulnerable and from disadvantaged backgrounds".

The Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) said it would "communicate in strong terms" its members' "frustration" at what it described as a "last minute decision".

It called on Mr Weir to reconsider the decision.

SDLP education spokesman Daniel McCrossan said on Twitter that the move was "totally disgraceful" and was "shameful, reckless and risky".

Sinn Féin education spokeswoman Karen Mullan also described it as "disgraceful".

On Friday Health Minister Robin Swann said Northern Ireland's new six-week Covid-19 lockdown is essentially a return to March's sustained restrictions.

Hair salons and close-contact services will close. Pubs and restaurants will be restricted to takeaway services.

Tighter measures will be in place for a week from 26 December, with no gatherings allowed between 20:00 GMT and 06:00.

Schools remaining open will be one major difference from the spring lockdown.

Mr Swann said the "short, sharp interventions" introduced in October had not worked, so the executive was returning to the level of restrictions which helped curb infection rates earlier in the year.

The reproduction rate - or rate at which the virus spreads - is currently 1 to 1.2, but there are fears it could rise to between 1.4 and 1.8 over Christmas.