Re-opening Schools

Schools may reopen on June 16, according to the Ministry of Education, if the Ministry of Health and Medical Services has decided that it is safe to do so.

But there’s a second wave of COVID-19 affecting China, victims having contracted the virus from domestic carriers or infected individuals coming in from abroad.

There is also a lack of scientific data on the virus plus taking into account.

The development of an effective vaccine is expected to bear fruit, within 12 to 18 months or two years.

And certain salient facts about local schools, especially, in the urban and peri-urban areas, need to be considered, before a decision is made to re-open schools.

An important consideration, for instance, is the fact that congested classrooms, with 40 to 50 students, in schools with total rolls of 600 to 800 students or more, are a norm in the urban and peri-urban areas.

This is also the case in some rural or remote locations, where only one or a few secondary schools, serve disparate communities, scattered over relatively large geographical spaces.

It is also, not uncommon, to find a feeder primary school, part and parcel, of a singular system, with a secondary school, within the same compound, both built by the same founding organisation.

A more recent development is the addition of a pre-school or kindergarten, to form a three-tier system, within the same location.

The end result is relatively large student rolls.

Social distancing would be impossible, in such densely-populated clusters, while the cost of providing a constant supply of sanitisers, soap, hand washing and cleaning chemicals and protective equipment, would be prohibitive, for many schools, unless continual assistance is provided.