A petition urging schools and ECE (early childhood education) centres to stay closed under Alert Level 3 has passed 35,000, despite the Education Minister being confident it was safe for them to reopening.
It comes as schools are set to open for some students from April 29, with Education Minister Chris Hipkins warning most would still be learning from home under Alert Level 3.
As of 5pm this evening, a Change.org petition urging no schools or ECE to open under Alert Level 3 had 35,500 signatures.
The petition was created by ECE teacher Hannah Swinkels.
"Early Childhood Educators cannot do their job without PHYSICAL contact with children," she wrote. "Children will need lots of cuddles and reassurance after we come out of lockdown."
"Children cannot distance one metre from each other, an infant does not know what one metre is or looks like, nor does a child of two or five years".
Today, Mr Hipkins said the approach to reopening schools and early learning centres was based on the "latest public health advice".
"I know that physical distancing will be very difficult with children and young people, particularly the youngest children in ECE.
"We've reached the point where the Director General of Health is confident that there is no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand, so the chance of it coming through the door or through the gate in the first place is low."
The Director-General of Health said the Government is "very confident" about limiting the spread of Covid-19. (Source: Other)
He said the Alert Level 3 approach was designed to limit the number of people children contact.
"All of the evidence does point to children having lower risk of getting infected and being infected by Covid, and it's possible to ensure children are within the same group each day and that there is no mixing between groups."
"To be clear, it is safe from a public health perspective to have a group of children learning together."
National's Simon Bridges told media that the Government's approach around education had been "poorly communicated".
"Teachers and mums and dads more often than not, don’t feel ready to go back to school.
"We don’t want to force that."
Mr Bridges said he wanted to see the advice the Government relied on to come to the decision.
"That would help us understand the rationale behind the communications.
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