“After more than a hundred days of the more or less effective distance learning, there is no reason why pupils and students, and thus their teachers and professors, should not return to schools and lecture halls. The government must immediately ensure appropriate conditions for their return, of course taking into account all of the necessary protective measures,” the LMŠ party said. It seems that another party has now joined the wise SD party, which called for schools without masks. The LMŠ party has begun calling for the immediate reopening of schools and faculties. “It is high time we stop destroying the future of our children,” they said after doing absolutely nothing in terms of getting people to respect the measures to curb the epidemic. With this, they are, of course, forgetting that we are still in the middle of a pandemic; on Tuesday, we recorded as many as 1439 new infections with the novel coronavirus.
In its appeal, the LMŠ party wonders why the rest of the world was able to return to schools, but not Slovenia. “How is it possible that in all of the supposedly prepared scenarios for the event of a pandemic, the competent Ministry only allows for two – home or school? Why did they brag about several versions of classes in August, when the government obviously only knows black and white, but not the intermediate colours and shades? Why didn’t the government at least suggest classes in shifts during this time? The educators and the principals are drawing attention to this issue, they are becoming increasingly loud, and now, with the boycott of online learning, the students have also stood up for themselves,” they wrote.
The LMŠ party is especially critical of the Minister of Education, Science and Sport, Simona Kustec, Ph.D., and emphasises the belief that the government of Janez Janša failed completely, as it was one of the first governments in Europe to close the schools; however, it is reopening the schools as one of the last in Europe (and our government is not yet reopening schools for everyone). “It is time; it is high time to stop destroying the future of children and young people.” The LMŠ party apparently forgot that the schools were closed partially also due to the schools without masks campaign, which contributed to the exponential growth in the number of infections. Despite the fact that the experts were clear at the time about what the appropriate way to curb the epidemic was, the SD party refused to listen to them and used the children for their own propaganda purposes. Of course, Branimir Štrukelj also joined them, which contributed to greater disobedience. When they realised that things had gotten serious all of a sudden, they changed their minds, and it was all the government’s fault again.
The appeal of the party, whose president gave up at a time when the country was suddenly faced with one of the biggest crises in the country’s history, is completely ignorant of the fact that we are still in the middle of an epidemic. If we compare the situation in our country to those of other European countries, we can see that we still have one of the most serious epidemiological pictures. To just reopen everything, without any serious consideration, could take us one or even two steps back pretty quickly, and that is certainly something that nobody wants.
Janša cleared things up for the LMŠ party
“If the LMŠ party had actually helped in the fight against the coronavirus, instead of constantly harassing and trying to tear down the government, then the school buildings (at least the existing ones) could have been reopened a long time ago. All of them. But unfortunately, not even open schools can help those who failed six classes,” the Prime Minister Janez Janša wrote in his response to the LMŠ appeal. With this, Janša was referring to the activities of the LMŠ party, which, during the entire time of the epidemic, was working on the formation of the Constitutional Arch Coalition, instead of calling for the people to adhere to the measures. It is especially unfortunate that Marjan Šarec was also spotted at the alternative celebration to the official state ceremony, where he himself did not really care about the protective measures. He was in a crowd of people, and there was not even a trace of a protective mask in sight.
The fact is that the members of parliament are supposed to set an example, but during this epidemic, we all saw how the president of the largest opposition party was constantly attacking practically every move that the government made, which cannot be expected to have a positive effect when it comes to compliance with the measures, implemented to contain the spread of the epidemic. Sometimes we simply have to face the truth and realise what the real reason for a situation is. If the LMŠ party was at least half as invested in the promotion of the protection measures as they are in the promotion of the Constitutional Arch Project, the reopening of schools could have happened a long time ago.
Nina Žoher
