Listen Now: 
Click here for the full interview.
Schools were open again today but there were few pupils in the classrooms.
Data from this morning indicates there were 7713 children in early childhood centres, or 4 per cent, and 11,846 or just 1 per cent of children in primary schools.
Whetu Cormack, the immediate past president of the Principals Federation, says that’s not surprising given the high level of concern still about the potential transmission of COVID-19.
He says the Government had made a difficult decision to allow a limited restart so the children of essential workers and those who had to go back to work could have somewhere to go, but families were able to make their own decisions based on their own circumstances.
"When tamariki go back to school those bubbles need to be kept really strong so that when they come home if they do have a nanny at home or a koro that's in their bubble, that everybody is protected but I know the Government has that in the front of their thinking when they decided to open kura across the motu today," Mr Cormack says.
He says given the existing inequities in the education system, there needs to be more work done on the impact of COVID-19 on Māori education.
!["p_facebook"]("/site/uma/images/story_img/facebook.jpg")
& !["p_twitter"]("/site/uma/images/story_img/twitter.jpg")
Copyright © 2020, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com
RELATED NEWS
