Covid-19 crisis behind drop in school registrations in Spain’s Balearics

COVID-19 is one of the main factors behind a drop in school registrations in the Balearics Islands, according to the regional Education minister.
The archipelago’s Education ministry reported there are 756 less requests for places for the upcoming 2020/21 school year than there were for the last.
The islands Education minister Marti March put the decrease down to the economic crisis created by the pandemic, as well as to a drop in the Balearics’ birthrate in recent years.
March reported that 90 per cent of the registration requests for the next school year were made telematically, commenting, “this is a system which is here to stay.”
He put particular emphasis on the fact that for 97 per cent of the requests for registrations for three year olds they had got places at the first or second choice schools.
All the islands’ education centres have now approved their contingency plans for ensuring hygiene and health safety conditions.
March stressed that all possible scenarios according to the pandemic situation have been prepared for, whether that is kids in classrooms with safety measures in place, cases of the virus in a particular school, or keeping pupils at home.