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The start of the school term this morning shows both the importance of education and safety of our children, with the minimum of delay for the opening of the term as the fourth wave of Covid-19 ebbed, but the insistence on the maximum precautions at all schools.

Last year’s Grade Seven results, with the significant improvement on the pass rate for the 2020 Grade Seven class, despite both being hit equally by Covid-19, shows that we are getting better at coping with the pandemic and figuring out ways to maintain schooling and improve schooling.

As with our health services, there have been important positive effects of Covid-19 as well as negative. For a start basic hygiene at all schools must now meet much higher minimum standards, with water supplies sorted out and the bathrooms being upgraded. That not only helps manage the spread of Covid-19, but also automatically reduces risk of other infections.

Secondly, the Government has accelerated the drive towards smaller classes by hiring more teachers.

A large batch of extra staff was hired last year, and now Treasury has found the money to hire another 10 000, with the hires being done as soon as the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has found out from the school enrolments this week where the extra staff must be deployed.

Obviously, where possible, hiring extra teachers from as close as possible to the schools that need them minimises the accommodation and transport problems. While decreasing the number of pupils per teacher is not a cure-all, it certainly allows more individual attention for each pupil.

There will always be those who can shine in almost any school setting, but most children will find some topic difficult at some stage and need a bit more attention. A teacher with fewer pupils can find that extra time to help.

The third gain comes from greater involvement of parents, especially at weekends, during the school holidays and when schools are shut for any reason or when classes have to be staggered.

To a large degree, the huge expansion of education in the 1980s now bears some additional fruit, with the vast majority of today’s parents having gone through at least 11 years of formal schooling and so able to cope a lot better than their parents could.

To this is connected the growth in online lessons, radio lessons and the like. It is still far from perfect for households that cannot afford wi-fi and have to watch the data budget like a hawk, but a surprising number of families have been able to make the extra sacrifices and make some use of the extra facilities. And every bit helps.

To a very large degree schooling is no longer something done only at school, although that is obviously the most important. Families must be more involved, even if this is just finding a cheap solar lamp so homework at night becomes possible, or allowing something to be downloaded on the family smartphone.

One interesting point, that Grade Seven girls did more than four percent better than boys, needs to be looked into.

It is unlikely to be some sort of in-built superiority and far more likely to be the result of different attitudes and different ways of bringing up children.

Girls obviously, on average, take education more seriously, and that is a global phenomenon, with girls more and more forming majorities in university intakes.

But also most families are keener on daughters spending more time at home and parents tend to be more nervous if they wander than they do with their sons.

Brothers need to be copying their sisters and putting more time into the books and less time into messing around with the other lads.

Another major advance this year is the dramatic expansion in BEAM, the special programme that ensures every child can convert their right to go to school into a practical right with the programme paying the tuition fees and now providing the uniform and other basics.

A third of all schoolchildren will benefit this year, a huge administrative hurdle for heads and education administrators, but one they are equipped to handle and one they want done properly.

The goal is free education for all, and while we have some distance to go, getting a third of the children into the free system is a major advance and builds on the success.

Once again we are converting the talk, and there has been a lot of talk over the decades, into practical action. Economic reform and sorting out the Government finances does have the useful benefits of first having more parents being able to afford to spend more on education, and secondly for the Government itself to find the money to hire the extra teachers and boost the budget to help those parents who simply do not have the money.

In this regard, the Government is correct in translating some of the extra budget set aside for education into filling gaps, both at schools and in assistance to families, rather than spreading it out so even the better off get cheaper fees.

It is the same concept that saw subsidies abolished, but more money in social payments to those who need help. You make the dollar work harder. Most rural district councils have given education a high priority when it comes to spending their devolution dollars, putting in the extra classrooms or even new schools where these are needed and this again shows the advantage of letting those who live in a community decide what that community needs first and what can wait until next year.

We also see practical measures in dealing with private schools. A growing number of parents want these, and they have the right, but we suddenly found out that along with the fancier private schools with proper buildings and everything registered, there were a lot that were rather informal.

The authorities took the right action of first tracking down these schools, and as they were not on anyone’s list that meant looking for them, and then giving them until the end of next month to get the paperwork done, which will include ensuring that deficiencies are sorted out or at least being in the process of being sorted out.

Closing the schools would just dump the children, but on the other hand the actual requirements for registration are not onerous and largely ensure that the children are in a healthy and safe environment, that the fees are spent properly, and that the children are being taught what they need to know to pass the public examinations.

And surely no one would want anything different.

So we wish the millions on their way to school this morning a successful term and successful year, and that everyone will put in the needed effort: schools, teachers, families and, of course, the children.