Edinburgh Council confirm that they are considering a return to home learning in schools due to a teacher shortage as Covid-19 infections surge across Scotland.
However, Edinburgh was not the only local authority to have to issue such a warning.
The Daily Express report that education bosses in Edinburgh, Fife and Dumfries and Galloway, have confirmed that “blended learning” could be reintroduced.
READ MORE: Ex-Hibs player turned postman wins £17,000 after bizarre chewing gum incident
Blended learning means pupils split their week between the classroom and home lessons.
The move comes amid teacher shortages amid record levels of infections fuelled by the BA.2 Omicron sub-strain.
In Edinburgh, there were 737 new cases as of March 20, with another 7468 across the week.
Edinburgh Council say they would only consider blended learning as a last resort.
A City of Edinburgh Council spokesperson said: “Our staff are working under immense pressure to continuing to provide teaching and learning however we are experiencing high numbers of staff and pupil absences at the moment.
"We have well established processes to ensure teaching can continue in person including various in school mitigations, deploying central staff and sharing staff between and across the learning community.
"Keeping children at school remains our priority but ultimately if these measures are all exhausted remote learning may be considered.”
The number of Scots in hospital with the virus hit a new high of 2,128 today - way above the previous peak in January 2021.
Latest figures show more than 6,000 teachers and support staff were absent from Scottish schools last week.
Local authorities said they could again adopt “blended learning” - widely criticised in earlier stages of the pandemic for widening the attainment gap.
Edinburgh City Council confirmed it was considering a return to remote learning should existing mitigations be “exhausted”.
Senior pupils are just weeks away from taking Nationals, Highers or Advanced Highers, some of whom have sat net formal exams in their school career.
Scottish Tory education spokesperson Oliver Mundell urged councils to rule out taking the “damaging and retrograde step” of remote learning.
He said: “I understand concern over rising Covid rates but shutting down classrooms and returning to remote learning is not the way forward, even in the short term.
“Our kids have suffered far too much disruption to their education and way of life over the last two years.
“They need the stability and continuity of a permanent, uninterrupted return to school - both for their educational and mental well-being.”
Jo Bisset, organiser for parent group UFTScotland, said families “will be fuming at this threat.”
She warned: “It’s incredible to see Scottish councils considering this action.
“Haven’t they seen the damage school closures caused to kids all across the country?
“If they haven’t seen that, they’re in complete denial about the impact the pandemic has had on education and social development.
“Local authorities need to do much better than this and, if they won’t, the Scottish Government must step in.
“We cannot return to this discredited and shambolic form of learning which harmed children so much, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Stand by Me Scotland urged the Scottish Government to fast-track the end of self-isolation rules to help ease the pressure on schools.
She said: “We welcome the forthcoming move away from mass testing and self isolation towards a sensible approach of staying at home if sick, and returning to work when well. Unfortunately this won’t happen until the end of April, so this is likely to be a problem until then.
“Bringing forward that date would go some way towards addressing this issue, and we would urge the Scottish Government to consider this.”
Director of education for Dumfries and Galloway council Gillian Brydson, said rising case numbers meant “very challenging” situations for schools and nurseries.
Despite an easing of curbs, remote learning could return “as a direct result of staff unavailability”, Ms Brydson told parents in a letter.
She added: “Please be assured that we would only ask pupils to do this if the situation is unavoidable, because of health and safety concerns due to staff absences, and for as short as possible.”
Shelagh McLean, Fife’s head of education, said it too faced a high number of absences and it was “managing” them to keep schools open.
But she warned that if staffing situations become “critical”, the council will “minimise” the impact of blended learning on pupils.
