Amber Rudd criticised for telling teachers to 'go back to school' from the comfort of her own home

As the world slowly returns to something resembling normality, people have become very keen to get teachers and children back into schools.

Despite there being no vaccine yet available to combat coronavirus and social distancing being the only safety measure available there have been multiple calls for schools to reopen.

Joining this choir is the former home secretary and MP for Hastings and Rye, Amber Rudd who told Andrew Marr on Sunday that teachers and pupils "have to go back."

Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show, she said:

Everybody is looking for certainty; certainty about when they can feel safe; certainty about how infectious children may or may not be to adults; what underlying risks are going to take place at schools, all these things that just aren’t available.

We’ve got this situation where the teaching unions are saying, ‘we are not prepared to allow teachers to go back to school, yet although we want them to go back, we need to be safe’.

But they have to go back because we need to make sure that our children go back and that all the issues to do not just with education, but also with security, safety, mental health issues, safeguarding, those children need to go back to school.

Teachers are being asked to reopen the schools and I hope they will do that.

Much like many of her fellow MPs, Rudd is being forced to work from home and communicate primarily through video calls, even though Jacob Rees-Mogg would like them to return to the Commons as soon as possible to 'set an example' to the rest of the country.

However, Rudd's plea didn't go over quite so well as, after all, she is still working for home so why should teachers listen to her?

The government and teachers unions have been at loggerheads with each other over the safety of returning to schools which Rudd conceded that there must be a safety guarantee put in place.

Teachers I have spoken to said they want to go back to school, but they are cautious about making that commitment, unless they can somehow get a commitment that the schools are safe.

Although the UK government has begun to marginally lift the lockdown restrictions there were still 170 confirmed deaths which is the lowest since the lockdown began.

Indy100 has contacted Amber Rudd for comment.