School closures greet us every year
It's the third school year of the pandemic. In purely mathematical terms, "only" 17 months have passed, but children count in school years. Children for whom the pandemic began in first grade are starting their third school year this week. The third year in which important decisions have to be made that will shape the future of an entire generation.
Past school closures were associated with high costs for the pupils affected: Entire educational careers have been thrown off balance. A study shows that 570 fewer young people than usual started an apprenticeship during the pandemic. The data shows a drop in new entrants to BHS (-2.4 percent), AHS upper secondary schools (-4.2 percent) and middle schools (-7.1 percent). In the case of 3,800 young people, it is apparently not even known where they are and whether they have perhaps already abandoned their educational career altogether. There is a threat of long-term consequences: lower incomes, poorer health, more dependence on social welfare, higher crime rates. And, as economists predicted, the pandemic has hit children and young people from financially weak and educationally disadvantaged families particularly hard; the gap in opportunities has widened once again.
"Normal" lessons must have priority! But the situation is even more complicated than in 2020. Until the vaccination, children and young people were considered to be the most vulnerable groups at risk and therefore had to show solidarity - they paid for this with long-term losses in education and income and a deterioration in mental health. Vaccination has changed a lot: Now children under 12 are at the mercy of the delta variant. While almost all other population groups can protect themselves from serious illnesses through vaccination, some federal states are already increasing the number of intensive care beds for children in anticipation of the rise in infections. As a society, we are therefore faced with an impossible - and unbearable - choice between the health risks for children posed by open schools and the long-term consequences of their closure.
There is an effective way to at least mitigate the negative consequences of both variants: Everything must be done to ensure that everyone for whom the vaccinations are approved actually gets vaccinated. In the spirit of solidarity - which has so far only been demanded of children and young people - this should also be a matter of course for older generations. And if it is not, then incentives should be considered. Economic theory offers a range of possibilities here: Lotteries, premiums, more freedom for the vaccinated. Studies show that vaccination rates of up to 90 % can be achieved with high enough financial incentives. The slower the virus spreads among children and young people because adults are vaccinated, the more we gain as a society both in terms of education and in curbing the number of infections with a severe course of the disease.
