Students who spent holidays in countries where the government advised against travel due to the coronavirus must be quarantined for 14 days and refused entry in schools, according to a recommendation from the Ministry of Culture.

Daycare centres, schools, colleges and other educational institutions “can and should” refuse to receive the students based on the recommendation, as reported by Jyllands-Posten.

The government has allowed Danes to travel only to Germany, Norway and Iceland from Monday, advising them against staying in populous cities.

Parents’ responsibility
The recommendation comes a week after five students from Roskilde Cathedral School tested positive for the virus following a holiday trip to Sweden. This led to the school cancelling classes for first year students for two weeks.

The teachers’ association and the union of teachers called for a decision on how the ministry’s guidelines should be implemented in each municipality. They argued that individual schools must not be left to interpret the rules.

“The hard part is knowing if people have been away. If there is suspicion, we must call the parents to ask. You should not ask the kids, that’s not fair,” said Claus Hjortdal, the head of the school leaders’ association.

Local authority
Hanne Hartoft, an associate professor of law at Aalborg University, said that decisions on whether to quarantine a student must be done locally.

She stressed, however, that measures must be taken to ensure that students under quarantine have access to education.