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UK Prime Minister "in awe" of parents who have risen to "unique challenges" during lockdown

Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street in London for parliamentary questions on January 27.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street in London for parliamentary questions on January 27. Leon Neal/Getty Images

The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has hailed the efforts of parents during lockdown in an open letter published on Saturday.

"While the past 12 months have been tough for all of us, the demands of this pandemic have also brought out the very best in a great many people," he wrote. "And I'm particularly in awe of the way the parents, carers and guardians of children have risen to the unique challenges with which you have been faced."

Parents are doing "a great job" and by staying home are "saving lives", he added.

He attended a virtual classroom of 10 to 11-year-olds on Friday and was impressed by the work of parents during the session.

Some 876,000 laptops have been given to schools so that kids can learn online and "hundreds of millions of pounds" will be put into "nationwide catch-up programmes" when the pandemic is over, Johnson said.

For weeks leading up to the New Year, despite surging coronavirus cases and a new highly contagious variant, Johnson's government assured schools and parents that children would return to the classroom in January.

On the morning of January 4, as children streamed into schools and he toured a hospital, Johnson touted "the efforts that we're making as a government to try to keep primary schools open."

Just hours later, he executed an about-face of acrobatic proportions. In a somber prime-time address to the nation, the Prime Minister said he was ordering the closure, from the next day, of not just secondary schools -- which serve children 11 and above and are where spread is more likely -- but also primary, or elementary schools.

 

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