Lessons still to be learned about masks in schools | Letters

Asia can teach the UK much about keeping schools open during a pandemic, says Edward Vickers, while Jo Campion warns that deaf pupils are likely to fall behind because of the return of face masks in class

Comparing the experience of European education systems in handling the Covid-19 pandemic is doubtless instructive (Masks in schools: several EU countries already enforce them in primaries, 3 January). Your article presents the salutary examples of countries such as France, which imposed a mask mandate on all pupils over 11 last November, and Belgium, which since December has required all pupils over six to be masked.

However, as an educational comparativist usually based in Japan, I read reports like this while inwardly screaming: “What about east Asia?” There has been some lurid coverage in the UK press of China’s draconian lockdowns. But we see very little discussion of the very different cases of Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, which have managed the pandemic far more effectively than their western counterparts, and with far less disruption to schooling.

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