The city’s chief executive announced the cancellation of the reopening of schools in Hong Kong on April 20.
Schools in Hong Kong will remain closed indefinitely
In a recent press briefing, Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, sadly announce the cancellation of the reopening of schools in Hong Kong, which was scheduled on April 20. The decision surfaced after the issue about the COVID-19 outbreak is left unsolved.
Almost a million students from kindergarten to secondary level are affected by the cancellation of classes that started February 3. Professor David Hui, the director of the Stanley Ho Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, advised a step-by-step recuperation of schools in Hong Kong.
The expected resume in school operations will start four weeks after if no local transmission of the COVID-19 resurfaces. The measures should be highly cautious since it involves the health of the children. We cannot put the health of the students at risk if there is no clearance from the health department regarding the control of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Homeschooling takes away family time
Currently, to cope up with the suspension of classes in actual classrooms, virtual teaching was introduced. Teachers make short videos daily, around 20 minutes in length, that discusses lessons on Chinese, English, Math, and Sciences.
Some parents find this method time consuming on their part since they have to supervise and watch together with their child through the course of the video, in order to guide them in answering the homework included at the end of the video.
Another concern brought out was the lack of interaction with other students. Some parents believe that online teaching is ineffective, or maybe they just do not have the time to supervise their children during the lesson.
Also, there is a suggestion to cancel out the entire 2019-20 school year since it will be a few months till students can go back to class and making them proceed to the next level without enough learning will only hinder their learning eventually.
Featured image by The Daily Beast
