Can schools force children to wear masks? MUT says relaxed guidelines unclear

The teachers’ union has criticised the authorities’ “ambiguous” new guidelines on mask wearing in schools, saying it is unclear whether students and educators can still be forced to wear them in class.
A new legal notice published yesterday simply states: “The temporary removal of face masks shall be permissible in the following situations: inside schools and other educational institutions.”
This seems to suggest the government and the health authorities wanted to sit on the fence and refrain from taking a position, Malta Union of Teachers head Marco Bonnici told Times of Malta.

“They know of the mixed feedback and how some want the masks and others don’t. So instead of taking a decision, they opted to let the schools decide.
“It is an ambiguous situation because the rules say one thing – that masks can be removed – but some schools might still opt to do things differently,” Bonnici said.
“The issue is, if a school’s management team decides it wants to mandate masks and a child does not want to wear one, what will the teachers do? Do they have the legal backing to tell the child or the parents to put on the mask?
“We don’t agree that the onus has been put on schools. The...