Nursery schools in England have expressed their frustration with the government for failing to provide financial support after the country went into lockdown. They warned that they could go out of business if the government does not provide the required financial help.
Nurseries across the country also expressed fear of working in unsafe environments, as they were the only group of teachers that were asked not to go into lockdown. According to the government plan, nursery schools will remain open throughout the lockdown period.
Nursery schools remain open
As coronavirus cases continued to soar across the country, the nursery school teachers have been asked to continue with their classes, with the Department of Education indicating that the children would not be at risk of the virus. However, teachers continued to express fear over the virus, arguing that they were being neglected and the risk that the virus posed on their health was not being taken seriously.
Unlike the first national lockdown in March, where nursery schools across the country were provided with financial support and teachers were not required to remain in schools, the current lockdown has seen no such efforts from the government towards these schools. This time money was only being offered if students continued showing up in schools.
With a raging pandemic that has been running rampant, however, most parents are choosing to stay with their children at home and not risk them to the pandemic. The result is schools with no funding from the government because very few students are attending the learning institutions. This has led to many nursery schools struggling to pay their staff, rent and meet other fixed costs for them to run properly.
Tulip Siddiq, the shadow minister for children and early years echoed concerns of these schools and argued that they were being placed in an impossible financial situation that risked the closure of more than 19,000 nursery schools across the country.
A petition has already been launched to include nursery school staff in the list of priority groups receiving the Covid-19 vaccine. So far, over half a million people have already signed it, putting pressure on the government to consider them.
