As the scholastic year draws to an end and some summer schools prepare to open their doors, the lack of government-issued safety guidelines is forcing individual schools to come up with their own rules to contain the spread of coronavirus. 

Many of the schools who are going ahead with their summer programme are drawing up their own guidelines while others are choosing to stay closed this summer for fear of not being able to meet last-minute requirements.

All schools were closed in mid-March as part of the measures put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. At the beginning of June, the government announced that childcare centres and summer schools could reopen.

The health authorities have so far issued strict guidelines to childcare centres that include raising the maximum child capacity to one child per six square metres instead of the standard five, and children and carers must remain within the same cluster of no more than six supervised children. Childcare centres complained that the guidelines were issued too late – allowing them little time to adapt.

So far, no such guidelines have been issued for summer schools, forcing those who are opening to come up with their own. It remains unclear whether or not the government will be issuing guidelines. Questions sent to the health and education ministries remained unanswered by the time of writing.

David Mifsud, administrator of Funsize Heros summer club, said that in the absence of guidelines they had created their own based on the government-issued guidelines for childcare centres and Sports Malta. These included increasing their team and renting out more classrooms to practice social distancing, ensuring that high hygiene and sanitising standards are maintained and that teachers will be wearing visors.

“If different guidelines had to be issued now it would be too late for us to adapt to them,” he said.

The Summer Programme at Helen O’Grady headquarters in Attard has also come up with a detailed set of guidelines which are clearly outlined on their website. These include restricting the number of students per class, taking students’ temperature on entry, teachers are to wear face shields and social distancing must be respected.

Some summer schools felt they preferred to remain closed this summer. One case was San Anton Summer Club, which opened applications on May 18, reversed its decision and cancelled the programme, for fear mitigation measures would not be enough to protect students and educators from the disease.