MINISTERS’  insistence that schools should remain open under Scotland’s strictest level of coronavirus restrictions, despite trade-union concerns, has been challenged in Holyrood.

From Friday, eleven of Scotland’s 32 local authorities will move to the strictest level of lockdown, but school staff have been told to continue in-person teaching. 

This is despite government figures highlighting week-on-week increases in the number of pupils and teachers infected with Covid-19 and absentee rates. 

Both the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) and NASUWT have said that schools in areas under level-four restrictions must move to blended or remote learning, with the EIS surveying members on their willingness to strike over safety. 

During a debate today brought by the Scottish Greens, MSPs were asked to back a motion calling for greater safety measures to be put in place which would ensure that workers are not penalised when self-isolating. 

The party warned that official levels of staff and pupils self-isolating were “an understatement,” with Green MSP Ross Greer claiming that the sector was “driving transmission,” and that there was a fear among staff that going to schools “could kill them.”

The MSP also emphasised the need for testing to be scaled up, with asymptomatic individuals included, and further staff recruited as promised earlier this year. 

Labour MSP Iain Gray backed the calls, noting that concerns about schools remaining open were not new and that unions were clear that steps already taken had “not been enough.”

Education Secretary John Swinney said that keeping schools safe for pupils and staff must remain a key priority for the government, and the government wanted to ensure that teachers felt safe at work. 

Scottish parliament have backed the motion on safer schools this afternoon.