Cologne City Gazette
Cologne. (ots)
Teachers in North Rhine-Westphalia are no longer automatically released from work if they are found to be pregnant. A corresponding regulation, which had been issued because of the risk of infection with Corona, has now been lifted, the NRW Ministry of Education confirmed to the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” (Wednesday edition). “The Ministry of Education, in close cooperation with the Ministry of Health, has updated the information on the use of pregnant teachers in face-to-face classes and asked the district governments to pass this information on to the schools in their district,” said a spokesman for School Minister Dorothee Feller (CDU) of the newspaper. “Accordingly, the current infection situation allows for a reassessment with regard to the protection of pregnant teachers in public schools. As a rule, the current infection situation no longer prevents pregnant teachers from continuing to work in face-to-face classes.” Nonetheless, maternity leave naturally continues to enjoy high priority, it said. “Therefore, it remains the case that a decision must be made on a case-by-case basis about continued employment at the specific workplace. Only if there are special risk factors should “organizational or personal protective measures be checked and defined”.
According to the Ministry of Education, around 3,400 teachers at public schools in North Rhine-Westphalia are currently pregnant. For around 800 of these teachers, it can be assumed that they are already within the six-week protection period before giving birth on the basis of the probable date of birth given in each case. “Unless there are other reasons not to do so, particularly maternity leave, the other 2,600 teachers would be available to work in the schools, taking into account the current regulations,” said the spokesman for the Ministry of Education.
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Original content from: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, transmitted by news aktuell
