Practical lessons are exempt from the corona measures, unlike the ‘normal’ secondary education. At the bakery school on Sterrenlaan, Eindhoven they say: we can’t do without.
A few minutes of theory about what gluten are and how they work, and then the class gets down to work. The pupils have to bake their own gluten-free bread from the various types of flour that teacher Mark Wils has placed on the table. It turns out that it’s not that easy. The ingredients have to be weighed out very carefully and things can even go wrong when they are mixed. Wils keeps a sharp eye on the batter bowls.
“You make bread with all your senses”, he says. “You need to look carefully to see if the flour is thoroughly mixed, feel the structure of the dough, smell and form your opinion”. Learning to make bread online is simply impossible, according to him. The students agree. “When I use my hands, it is better stored in my head”, Kayleigh Nas, the only female student in the class, says. “That’s why practical education is so important to me”.
Summa College is happy with the exceptional position practical education has had for some time now since the beginning of the corona measures. Approximately half of the total number of lessons given at the 300 Summa study programmes are practical lessons. All of these have to be offered corona proof.
Nevertheless, here too, the future perspective is lacking, due to the absence of a long-term corona policy. Director Laurent de Vries of Summa College: “After our own research, we too have noticed that there are some thirty per cent more complaints among students about depression and the like. That’s why it’s really important that we have a more solid policy. So that we know better where we stand and that the whole education system can just open up”. His hopes are cautiously pinned on the new cabinet, which was presented on Monday.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
